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Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers
Graduate School
1966
British mercantile interests and the peace of Paris
Barry M. Gough
The University of Montana
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BRITISH MERCANTILE INTERESTS AND THE
PEACE OF PARIS
By
Barry Morton Gough
B. Ed. (Secondary) University of British Columbia, 1962
Presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the
degree of
Master of Arts
UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
1966
Approved by:
Chairman, Board of Examiners
, Graduate School
0 1966
Date
UMI Number: EP40611
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
I.
II.
INTRODUCTION ...........
BRITISH MERCANTILE INTERESTS ON THE
EVE OF THE WAR . . . . . . . . . . . .
III.
BRITISH MERCANTILE INTERESTS DURING
THE SEVEN YEARS1 WAR, 1754-1760. . . .
IV.
THE MERCANTILE INTERESTS AND THE
COMING OF THE PEACE, 1760-1762 . . . .
V.
THE RISE OF THE PEACE PARTY AND THE
MAKING OF PEACE.......................
VI.
THE TREATY OF PARIS. . .................
VII.
C O N C L U S I O N .........................
APPENDIXES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.....................
BIBLIOGRAPHY........ .............................
INTRODUCTION
All too often historians have portrayed British
imperial policy as a creation of Whitehall and the Colo­
nial Office.
A. B. Keith emphasized the constitutional
aspects of the development of British colonial policy;
C. M. Andrews stressed the imperial structure of mercan­
tilism; and G. L. Beer concentrated on the costs of defense
and the commercial policy of the mother country towards
the colonies.^
This thesis is based on a different presup­
position: namely that imperial policy reflected the econo­
mic structure of the empire.
It existed as an adjunct to
the operations of the slave trader, the sugar planter, the
fisherman of the ports of western England, the fur merchant
and the trader to India and the spice islands.
Debates
over imperial policy sometimes consisted of discussions
among these interests themselves or with the more tradition­
ally landed and national interests which were less concerned
with imperial issues than were their mercantile counterparts.
But, whether the interest was national or imperial, the rise
of Great Britain to international power in the eighteenth
^A. B. Keith, Constitutional History of the First
British Empire (Oxford. 1936*); C. M. Andrews. The Colonial
Period of American History: England's Commercial and Colo­
nial Policy (New Haven, 1938); and G. L. Beer, British Colo­
nial Policy, 1754-1765 (New York, 1907).
2
century was based upon trade, re-inforced by war when neces­
sary.
Profit was the principal generator of imperialism.
The commercial community of this small nation exten­
ded its trade throughout
the Atlantic seaboard, the Carib­
bean,the coasts of West
Africa and the far-distant areas of'
trade in Asia.
Britain, the main center of the trade, con­
stituted the financial nucleus and focal point of an everchanging mercantile policy.
The role of the mercantile in­
terests in the formation of this commercial policy disturbed
some eighteenth century commentators.
No less a figure than
Adam Smith reflected:
Of the greater part of the regulations concern­
ing the colony trade, the merchants who carry
it on, it must be observed, have been the prin­
cipal advisers.
We must wonder, therefore, if,
in the greater part of them, their interest has
been more considered than either that of the
colonies or that of the mother country.^
Adam Smith was not concerned here with the wealth of the colo­
nies or with the wealth of the British nation.
He levelled
his criticism against the powerful mercantile interests.
While the merchants often made substantial gains from commer­
cial expansion during the eighteenth century, the landed in­
terests often failed to prosper directly from Britain's in­
volvement in the great wars of empire in that period, save
where they acted as investors in trading enterprises.
2
Whereas
Adam Smith, Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations (New York, 1937), 550.
3
the commercial community was generally responsible for the
developments of empire, the larger landed interests often
possessed the political power to determine the final out­
come of these developments or at least to check the influ­
ence of the commercial interests.
The making of the peace that ended the Seven Years1
War demonstrates the validity of these statements.
The
Treaty of Paris remains a monument to the moderation shown
by members of a peace party in Parliament determined, at all
costs, to gain a quick settlement to what they, as landed
interests, considered an expensive war.
The landed interests
thwarted the full possibilities for extensive growth of the
mercantile community by accepting a peace which was inconsis­
tent, as far as the commercial community was concerned, with
the extent of the war effort and the great victories of the
war.
A study of the historical works dealing with the
Treaty of Paris reveals a predominantly political bias.
Most
of these works have considered the making of peace to have
been solely a ministerial problem of political power follow­
ing the accession of George III and the rise to dominance
within the ministry of Lord Bute at the expense of Pitt and
Newcastle.
Yet, these interpretations fail to consider fully
that the war had been fought primarily because of Anglo-French
commercial rivalry and that the peace was mainly a commercial
4
settlement.
Most political interpretations, while rightly
concluding that the party of Lord Bute created the peace,
ignore or play down the role of the mercantile attitudes
and efforts throughout the period of the war and the peace
extending from 1754 to 1763.
This thesis aims to correct that deficiency.
raises several questions seldom posed.
tile interests in this period?
the making of war?
It
What were the mercan­
What role did they play in
Was the war effort to their advantage?
Was the Treaty of Paris satisfactory to the British commer­
cial community?
Did it meet their expectations?
At the same time this study will shed some light on
the relationship between the mercantile interests and the
ministry during this period.
By considering the merchants
in Parliament, we will view the opponents of the peace and
the reasons for their disapproval.
This study will show that
the peace party, representing the landed interests, although
perhaps aware of the attitudes and desires of the mercantile
interests, sacrificed many commercial gains in order to
achieve peace.
It deemed the spoils of war to be of less
importance than did the mercantile community.
To the slave
traders, the sugar planters, the fur dealers, the fishermen
and the spice traders, the Treaty of Paris only moderately
expanded the colonial areas of their interest.
The war,
caused mainly by commercial rivalry, ended in a peace dicta­
ted by the landed community.
5
Yet the war was a victory for the mercantile inter­
ests, for the expansion of the empire, although not to the
extent of their expectations, was a creation of their doing.
Professor Galbraith’s words may well serve as a key-note for
this study:
The expansion of the British Empire has been
largely motivated by the energies of the mer­
cantile class. Far more important to the
shaping of British Imperial policy than the
secretaries and under-secretaries of state
often credited with its formation were hun­
dreds of men in the commercial community,
most of them unknown to history, who created
the conditions upon which that policy was
based.3
^J. S. Galbraith, The Hudson's Bay Company as an Im­
perial Factor, 1821-1869 (Berkeley, 1957), 3.
II
BRITISH MERCANTILE INTERESTS ON
THE EVE OF THE WAR
On the eve of the Seven Years' War the British em­
pire was a composite of trading areas, colonial settlements
and military posts.
Throughout the temperate and tropical
zones traders, settlers and soldiers reached out beyond the
bounds of the coastline of Europe to the far distant areas
of the West Indies, the North American seaboard, the coasts
of West Africa and the spice islands of the Far East.
In
each of these areas, the British trader, settler or soldier
found himself involved in a vast international competition
in which the maritime powers of Europe vied with each other
in the war of empire.
Nowhere was the rivalry of European overseas interests
greater in the mid-eighteenth century than in the West Indies.
With Spain and France dominating the major islands, Britain
had to maintain her Caribbean possessions in the face of
fierce competition.^
By 1754, the European powers were firm­
ly established in their territorial control of the West Indies
save for those minor islands unsettled by Europeans.
^Full lists of British acquisitions in this area can
be found in Richard Pares, Merchants and Planters (Cambridge,
1960), 51, and C. P. Lucas (ed.), A Historical Geography of
the British Colonies ( 6 vols.; Oxford, 1905), IV, 2.
7
Generally speaking, the islands of the Caribbean
were unsuitable for British settlement.
Although heat made
possible the cultivation of a sugar crop, it in turn neces­
sitated a labor force capable of living and working in the
tropical area.
Hurricanes during the period from August
*
.
to October affected the flow of supplies from and trade with
. 3
the mainland colonies.
The irregularity of trade resulting
from this climatic feature made the outer islands very de­
pendent upon Britain.
On the other hand, the North American sphere became
a settlement area.
ing population.
The American colonies possessed a grow­
By 1754, the population of the colonies ap­
proximated 1,385,000 whites and 310,000 Negroes.^
The colo­
nial settlements were increasing in size and strength.
year witnessed an influx of immigrants.
possibility of annexation.
Each
Each war posed the
The addition of Acadia earlier
in the century served as a portent of the eventual northern
expansion which was to follow at the expense of the French.
^See L. J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in
the British Caribbean^ 1763-1833, (New York, 1963), 5-3 for
geographicConsiderations and the decline of the British
population.
^Richard Pares, Yankees and Creoles; the Trade be­
tween North America and the West Indies before the American
Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., T53^J^ 18.
^L. B. Wright, The Atlantic Frontier: Colonial Ameri­
can Civilization, 1607-1763 (New York. 1947), 304.
8
Whereas the British colonies were basically selfsupporting, New France was a colony fostered by paternalism.
Since France's interest in North America had not increased
appreciably after the days of Richelieu, New France could
only claim 65,000 Canadiens at the time of the conquest.
Yet France controlled the continental hinterland and a string
of forts from Louisburg to the Gulf of Mexico protected the
North American colonial interests of Europe's strongest na­
tion .
By the Treaty of Utrecht, France retained little more
of Canada than her commercial basin of the St. Lawrence.
But
contrary to the treaty, the Acadians still inhabited Nova
Scotia.
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts saw this as a con­
stant threat to New England.
He warned that if France gained
military control of the region, she would have control of
the cod fisheries of the British maritime colonies as well as
those of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence, thus making pos­
sible the maintenance of an "immense nursery of seamen to man
her navy."^
The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748 did nothing to
halt the ever-increasing rivalry between Britain and France
in North America.
The return of Louisburg to France resulted
in Britain's building of Halifax as a protective measure.
C.
H ..'LincoIn, (ed.) , The Correspondence of William
Shirley (2 vols.; New York, 1912), II, 149.
9
Britain recognized Governor Shirley's fears of the growth
of French coritrol on the Atlantic Seaboard.
At the same
time the ministry was interested in the claims of the Hud­
son's Bay Company.
The British government requested in 1750
that the Company submit a definition of claims as a part of
a wider attempt to clarify British demands in view of the
French encroachments.^
The constant westward search for
furs and lands meant conflict with the French in the Ohio
Valley.
In addition, the building of increased fortifica­
tions in the Ohio indicated toBritain that France intended
to consolidate her power in the hinterland.
In another trading area, the west coast of Africa,
the European nations exerted little territorial control.
The Dutch, French and British competed for trade, sought
concessions and erected forts to protect their rights to
the trade of slaves and other commodities.
The English had
been engaged in the slave trade since 1560, and for more than
a century after 1640 the existence of the royal monopoly
plagued the slave trade.
The problems of the Asiento led to
the end of the monopoly and tothe establishment by parlia­
mentary act of the 'Company ofMerchants trading to Africa'
open to all traders paying a 40 shilling fee.
8
The Company,
^E. E. Rich, The History of the Hudson's Bay Company,
1670-1870 (2 vols.; London, 1958), I, 653-4.
Q
°Great Britain, Statutes at Large, 23 Geo. II, c. 31
(1750).
10
with business offices in London, was managed by a nine mem­
ber committee equally representing the chief centers of the
trade, London, Bristol and Liverpool.
Despite profits which
often were as high as 100 per cent, the slave trade received
an annual average subsidy of £13,000 from Parliament to main9
tain the forts of West Africa.
On the eve of the war the
government subsidized nine factories.
As in the other areas
of empire, Britain's principal rival in the slave trade was
France which controlled the valuable areas of Senegal and
Gor^e.
The East India Company constituted the center of Bri­
tish interests in the East Indies and India.
company of trade and an agency of government.
the French and British interests met in India.
It was both a
As elsewhere,
Until the
end of the War of the Spanish Succession, a state of neutral­
ity had existed between the rival companies of Britain and
France.
However, the War of the Austrian Succession made ap­
parent the French desire to challenge the British commercial
interests.^
The French capture of Madras and the British
retaliation marked the beginnings of a conflict which did not
end until the British conquest of Pondicherry in 1761.
a
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill,
N.C., 1944), 36, and Lucas, Historical Geography of the Bri­
tish Colonies, III, 87.
l^For a list of English East India Company possessions
in 1748 see L. H. Gipson, The British Empire before the American Revolution (12 vols. to dateJ Caxton, Idaho and New York,
1936-65)7 ’V7 '260.
11
Between 1748 and 1754, the French Company of the
Indies developed a system of alliances involving the main­
tenance of an Indian overlord against internal rivals and
external foes.
This alliance system in the Carnatic was fos­
tered by Dupleix who believed that territorial power should
be the object of his company if the British supremacy was
to be matched.
By 1754 the imperial aims of Dupleix were
contrary to the commercial aims of his superiors.
A repre­
sentation of the French company, seeking a compromise with
the British rivals, received the following retort in answer
to its claims:
... it is far better that the natives should
be masters of that country, and give the law
to both the French and us than that we should
remain there in a mean declining way, receiv­
ing laws from the French. The credit of the
English as merchants is superior in India to
that of the French, and they will always have
the preference in all India governments who
are their own masters, so long as they pre­
serve their mercantile reputation. i
But Dupleix fell from office in 1754 and agreements later in
that year revealed a possible peaceful solution to the mutual
commercial benefit of the two countries.
However, the seeds
of war had been sown in India.
Farther east, the British traders ventured into the
spice islands.
Here the conflicts with the Dutch made the
^Ibid., 264-5, from India Office, Home Series, Misc.,
93, 146-60.
12
British position insecure.
The seventeenth century had wit­
nessed the constant clash of these two nations.
By 1754,
Fort Marlborough on Sumatra remained the chief if not sole
British post in the region.
The main channels of British trade linked Britain
with the coast of Africa.
From Africa, the trade routes
either continued southward to India and the spice islands
via the Cape of Good Hope or westward to the Caribbean where
the trade of the British met with that of the North American
colonials, and the French and Spanish.
To the north there
was a seaway of fishermen between Europe and Newfoundland.
Within easy reach of the North American colonial ports, illi­
cit trade existed, irrespective of the mercantilist theories
of the day and the Acts of Trade designed to correct the em­
pire's ills.
profitable.
Mercantilist laws made smuggling all the more
Ideally, a division of labor existed: the mother
country supplied manufactured items; Africa supplied the labor;
the West and East Indies supplied tropical products; and the
continental colonies supplied food to the West Indies and the
mother country.
One theoretician, Postlethwayt, a mid-eigh­
teenth century devotee to the self-sufficient empire, favored
a system of "political commerce" to develop an imperial economic unit. 12
But theory and practice were divergent.
^Malachy Postlethwayt, Britain's Commercial Interest
Explained and Improved (2 vols.; London, 1758).
13
Mercantilism did foster a strong triangular trade, but it
could not control the slave traders of Africa, the rum
sellers of the Caribbean or the rice vendors of Carolina,
all of whom sought a higher profit where the King’s customs
officials had no jurisdiction.
The slave trade, aptly called "the nerve centre” of
the old imperialism, was of prime importance to the empire. J
Britain held the lucrative Asiento contract with Spain.
Fur­
ther, Britain’s predominance in the slave trade allowed her
to supply not only her tropical-zone colonies but her temperate-zone colonies as well.
The role of the slave was exceed­
ingly important in the imperial design.
In addition to supply­
ing the needed labor, he existed as a market for the fisheries,
the agricultural products of the thirteen colonies and the
manufactured items of Britain.
pivot of the triangular trade.
Thus, the slave trade was the
14
The Company of Merchants trading to Africa presented
an annual petition to the House of Commons.
The petition of
1755 stated that the Company had invested the whole sum gran­
ted for 1754 "...in stores and necessaries for the several
forts, and in the materials for rebuilding the fort at
13W. L. Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740-1763 (New
York, 1940), 251.
14
Malachy Postlethwayt was chief amongst the suppor­
ters of the slave trade at this time. The title of his work
is worthy of note: The African Trade, the Great Pillar and
Support of the British Plantation Trade in North America
IJ'LonJon,I743')'.--------------------------------------
14
Annamaboe. . . . Yet, it continued, the government subsidy
remained insufficient for the needs of the Company.
The pe­
tition promised that Annamaboe would
...be of the greatest importance for the pro­
tection of the trade of that place, and in
consequence thereof, the trade of the whole
coast which the French have attempted at dif­
ferent times to encroach upon, and take from
the English.
Regulated by British statute, the trade was controlled
by Parliament and by the Board of Trade.^
But members of
the Company often attacked the committee responsible for
the direction of the Company.
They claimed the committee
mismanaged the affairs of the Company and thus they demanded
recompense from the Board of Trade. 18 The Royal African Com­
pany had long been plagued by the competition of interlopers;
the decline of the royal monopoly and the creation of the
Company of Merchants trading into Africa opened the trade on
an equal basis within a framework of imperial support.
The British also confronted French competitors in
Africa.
The case of John Newton, the master of a Liverpool
slave trading ship, is an example of the competitive buying
^Great Britain, Journal of the House of Commons, XVII
(1754-1757), 84.
16
Ibid.
^ Ibid., 128.
18journal of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations
(hereafter cited as the Journal of the Board of Trade) .LXI
(1753), 437-8.
15
on the African coast.
He paid 1,12 for the first of a number
of slaves offered for sale in order to retain the interest
19
of the sellers.
He claimed the buying price to have doubled
in recent years and complained:
There are such numbers of french vessels,
and most of them determined to give any
price they are asked, rather than trade
should fall into our hands, that it seems
as if they fitted out not so much for
their own advantage, as with a view of
ruining our purchases. 0
The slave trade to the British West Indies remained
relatively constant in the inter-war period.
Pitman, who
collected a summary of the imports into Jamaica and Barbados,
21
showed that in the period extending from 1715 to 1767 the
slave trade to those islands remained relatively constant.
22
Using Pitman’s tables, it can be calculated that on the aver­
age, in each year in the 1749-54 period, 5,412 slaves were
imported into
Jamaica and 3,325 were imported
Thus, the older plantations received
a steady
intoBarbados.
supplyoflabor
to support their steady growth.
19John Newton, Journal of a Slave Trader, 1750-1754
(London, 1962), 29.
20
Ibid.
F. W. Pitman, The Development of the British West
Indies, 1700-1763. (New Haven, 1917), 72, 391-2.
22
The following shows the steady import pattern into
Barbados:
Period
1715-1725
1726-1735
1746-1756
1757-1767
Slaves Imported
3170
2940
3177
3014
16
During times of war, in areas where British military
conquest made British trade legal, the traders were able to
make remarkable sales.
The nine-month British occupation of
Cuba in 1762 saw the importation of 10,700 slaves and the
occupation of Guadeloupe between 1759 and 1763 saw the impor23
tation of 40,000 Negroes.
Thus, while the need for slaves
proved to be steady in the older plantations, the newer areas
of agricultural development demanded great numbers of slaves.
As a result of this increased demand, the plantation owners
of Jamaica and Barbados were forced to pay higher prices for
their labor supply.
The attitudes of the absentee planters
in Britain were shaped by this competition and the West In­
dian interests usually interpreted the policies of war and
peace in terms of their investment
Britain’s chief competitor
across the seas.
in this area was France.
During the first half of the century, French commerce expan24
ded rapidly in this region.
By selling their finer sugars
at lower prices, the French captured much of the European mar­
ket which the British had held.
But the British West Indian
planters were protected by a monopoly of the home market which
^^Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, 32, and E. W. H.
Lecky,
A History of England in the Eighteenth Century.(7 vols.;
London, 1913), II, 2247
A/
For a full discussion of the problems of the West
Indian merchants and planters challenged by French trade and
their influence in the creation of the Molasses Act, see C. M.
Andrews, ’’Anglo-French Commercial Rivalry, 1700-1750: the Wes­
tern Phase," American Historical Review, X (July, 1915), 760-73.
17
they, according to Knorr, ’’exploited with alacrity."
The
price of raw sugar, an excellent index of Caribbean prosper­
ity, rose from 16s ll^d per cwt. in 1733 to 42s 9%d per cwt.
in 1747 and the profits from this growth produced the wealthy
vested interest so powerful in the House of Commons in the
26
last half of the eighteenth century.
The American colonies by 1754 were in a period of
rapid growth.
Statistics on ship-building and iron produc­
tion point to the power of the competition which the Ameri27
cans could offer to the British manufacturer.
Unlike the
West Indian interests, the American colonials had no desire
to develop a vested interest in Britain.
Although the colo­
nials fought to rid the continent of the "French menace,"
their interests were local and colonial rather than imperial.
The fisheries had long been considered a nursery for
seamen.
At the request of William Pitt.the Elder, Captain
John Masters calculated that the total trade was worth £300,000
to Britain each year.
It employed 10,000 British seamen and
28
accounted for 26,000 tons of shipping.
On January 15, 1755
merchants concerned with whaling presented a petition to the
^K. E. Knorr, British Colonial Theories, 1571-1850
(Toronto, 1944), 139.
26
L. J. Ragatz, "Absentee Landlordism in the British
Caribbean, 1750-1833," Agricultural History. V (1931), 7-22.
^L. H. Gipson, The Coming of the Revolution, 17631755 (New York, 1962) ,
2Q
Chatham MSS, Bundle 81, as found in R. G. Lounsbury,
The British Fishery at Newfoundland, 1634-1763 (New Haven,
1934), 312.
18
House of Commons asking that the bounties be raised.
They
argued that: "...many ships have been fitted* out for and a
great number of British sailors have been trained in this
service...." 29 The petitioners claimed that the rise in
30
bounties since 1749 had led to an increase in trade.
Par­
liament even paid a subsidy to the distressed owners who lost
31
their vessels in pursuit of the fisheries.
Clearly, the
Board of Trade and Parliament regulated the fisheries.
The economic statistics of the inter-war period from
1749 to 1754 show the relative importance of the trading areas
of the British empire. 32 Consideration will be given to im­
ports and exports with each of the following areas in turn-Africa, Nova Scotia, the West Indies, the thirteen colonies,
and India and the East Indies.
In the years of peace, 1749-1754, exports from Bri­
tain to Africa increased considerably.
talled 1,276,000.
In 1753 exports to­
Africa was a poor selling market for manu­
factures; only Nova Scotia received fewer British exports.
^Journal of the House of Commons* XXVII
(1754-1757),
85.
^Bounties were paid to 22 ships in 1742-48 and with
an increased bounty, .to 162 ships in the period 1749-1754.
Ibid.,52.
^ Ibid., 165.
J The following figures are from and the calculations
are based upon B. R. Mitchell, Abstract of British Historical
Statistics, (Cambridge, 1962), 310. See Appendixes I and II
for abstractions of Mitchell's table from which the statistics
were drawn for the calculations in this section.
19
But Nova Scotia exported to Britain more than Africa did in
1753, namely £49,000?compared to £34,000.
British merchants
were not much concerned with African imports.
The exports from the West Indies to Britain in the
years 1749-1754 totalled approximately £1,500,000.
But in
this period British exports rose steadily from £554,000 in
1749 t o-£833,000 in 1753.
The markets of the West Indies
proved valuable for the British exporter.
was
considered
Yet this area
a source of supply.
British trade with the thirteen colonies was much
different from that with the West Indies; British exports al­
ways exceeded imports from America.
It has been calculated
that the increasing trade imported into Britain averaged
•£858,000 annually, while exports from Britain averaged
£1,236,000 during the same period.
In comparison, the West
Indies could be considered supply colonies; in 1753, for
example, they exported a total value of £1,903,000 and im­
ported only £833,000.
Thus the American colonies could not
be considered solely as markets for British manufactures.
Britain’s annual imports from the Far East (valued at
£1,081,000) exceeded those from America (£858,000), but they
were less then those from the West Indies (£1,536,000). Annual
British exports to the Asian regions (£656,000).can, however,
be considered equal to those exported to the West Indies
(■£654,000); the two combined approximated the average yearly
exports to America (£1,236,000).
20
In retrospect, it is possible to conclude that the
years from 1740 to 1754 witnessed a steady growth in colo­
nial trade.
In total trade, on a yearly average, the West
Indies held the prime position (Ii2,210,000) , followed closely by the thirteen colonies (L2,074,000) and India and the
Indies (tl,737,000).
In comparison to the British trade with
these key areas, British trade with Africa, the rest of Bri­
tish North America and the foreign West Indies and South Ameri­
ca was of much less importance.
The British scene, the vested interests of trading
and the parliamentary representation of those interests de­
serve close examination.
The merchants as a group held appro­
ximately 50 of 558 seats in the House of Commons.
Their role
in the shaping of imperial policy, according to Bowden, "was
out of all proportion to their numbers and their wealth." 33
Trade and commerce in a Britain less than twenty-five percent
urban, and with manufacturing of little importance, were the
34
cardinal factors in the British economy.
The West Indians, merchants and planters alike, were
chief amongst the mercantile interests.
Their power was great.
According to Ragatz, the West Indian nabobs,
^^Witt Bowden, Industrial Society in England towards
the end of the Eighteenth Century' (New York, 1925),.5.
•^Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History:
Englandfs Commercial^and Colonial Policy, 321.
21
...firmly entrenched in parliament,...
exercised a preponderant influence on the
course of events. Sugar was king, they
who produced it constituted the power be­
hind the throne, and the islands on which
their opulence and commanding position
had been reared were regarded by all as 3 5
the most valued of overseas possessions.
The West Indian merchants held fifteen of the fifty seats in
the possession of the merchants after the election of 1761
36
and as such were a powerful bloc in the House of Commons.
Among those who were born in the West Indies and held
important positions there before taking up residence in Bri­
tain were William and Julines Beckford, members of the richest
Jamaican family and Members of Parliament for London and Salisbuty, respectively.
Other Jamaicans were Henry Dawkins repre­
senting Southampton; Thomas Foster, Dorchester; Rose Fuller,
Maidstone; Sir Alexander Grant, Inverness Burghs; and Edward
Morant representing Hindon.
bons were from Barbados.
J. E. Colleton and Sir John Gib­
Samuel Martin was from Antigua.
W. M. Burt, William Woodley and Charles Burrow were from St.
Kitts.
Eight others constituted an "outer-ring" of less in­
fluential "West Indians." Since intermarriage was strong amongst the planter families, Hampshire and Wiltshire became
strongholds of that interest; in fact, during the mid-eighteenth
35Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class, viii.
B. Namier, England in the Age of the American
Revolution, (London, 1930)7 274-5.
22
century no less than six Jamaicans held seats in Southampton. 37
Their financial power enabled them to purchase their parlia­
mentary seats; Lord Chesterfield lamented that he was unable
to purchase a seat for his son, the merchants having bought
38
those available for as much as £3,000 to £5,000.
The West
Indian planters also held influence in London, Bristol and
39
Liverpool, the centers of sugar refining in Britain.
The West Indian nabobs became a dominant factor in
British politics after the creation of the Society of West
40
India Merchants in 1745.
One North American, Jasper Maudlit,
writing from London to the Massachusetts' Representatives,
complained about the parliamentary power of the West Indians:
...considering the very formidable number
of votes which the West Indians have in
the house of commons, that it is our busi­
ness to avoid, as much as possible the
committing ourselves in any dispute with
them. 4-1
3?Based on a list found in ibid., 277. For a discus­
sion of intermarriage of West Indian families, their colonial
plantations and their landed estates in Britain see R. B.
Sheridan, "The Wealth of Jamaica in the Eighteenth Century,"
Economic History Review, 2nd ser., XVIII (August, 1965), 306W.
•^Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class, 52.
*^For information on the centers of sugar refining in
Britain see Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, 73-8.
^L. M. Penson, "The London West India Interest in the
Eighteenth Century," English Historical Review, XXXVI (July,
1921), 378-82.
^"Letter from Jasper Maudlit," Collections of the
Massachusetts Historical Society, VI, ser. I, 195.
23
The absentee planter in the House of Commons was always
anxious to protect his colonial investment.
The slave traders made their interest felt through
the merchant petitions from the key centers of the trade-Bristol, London and Liverpool--where respectively 237, 147
42 *
and 89 slave traders were listed in 1755.
West Indian
interests, with a watchful eye on the slave trade, represen­
ted those cities; Richard Beckford held a seat in Bristol
until 1756, Richard Pennant represented Liverpool and William
/o
Beckford represented London.
The ports of western England constituted the centers
of the fishing interests.
A petition to the Board of Trade
on March 7, 1759 reveals, as follows, the close alliance of
those fishing towns:
The secretary of the Board laid before the
Board several memorials and other papers
received from the merchants and others of
the ports of Bristol, Exeter, Barnstaple,
Bideford, Dartmouth and Poole, trading to
the island of Newfoundland and concerning
the fishery there.... ^
Joseph Gulston, a merchant trader to South and North America
who represented Poole in the House of Commons, found the gain­
ing of a seat there difficult n ...because of the favours which
^^Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, 32 from J. Latimer,
Annals of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1893), 271.
^L. B. Namier and J. Brooke, The House of Commons,
1754-1790, (3 vols.; New York, 1964), I, 283-90,317-18 and 324-30.
^Journal of the Board of Trade. LXIV (1759), 23.
24
a mercantile community with extensive trading interests had
45
1
to solicit from the Government.”
The furriers were not well represented; in fact, only
one, Sir William Baker, acted on their behalf in Parliament.
As a merchant with an investment in the Hudson’s Bay Company,
he was influential in advising Newcastle on matters relative
to North America and often debated with William Beckford.
He
was one of the 'monied interest’, which Lucy Sutherland defined
as ”...a small but growing number of persons closely and habi­
tually concerned with that machinery for creating and mobilizing credit....”46 Although Baker represented Plympton Earl,
his influence was greatest in London where at various times
he had been an alderman of the City and chairman of the East
India Company as well as governor of the Hudson s Bay Company. 47
The East India Company had a parliamentary faction al­
most equal to that of the West Indians.
H. C. Boulton, who
had shipping interests, and Robert Jones, a London merchant,
were company directors.
were former directors.
Z. P. Fonnereau and Thomas Walpole
George Amyand and Sir George Cole-
brooke were stockholders.
Robert Clive returned from India
in 1761 to strengthen his parliamentary influence in Shrews­
bury.
Others included Penegrine Cust, George Dempster, John
^Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 560-1.
^Lucy Sutherland, ’’The City of London in Eighteenth
Century Politics,” Essays Presented to Sir Lewis Namier
(London, 1956), 39-41.
47
Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 39-41.
25
Stephenson, John Walsh, Sir James Creed and Alexander Hume
48
Campbell, all with East India Company connections.
In
total, fourteen M. P.'s had direct interest in the Company.
The textile interests were in their formative period
in the 1750’s and 1760's.
Midland counties
trade.
The commanding influence of the
would not be felt until the period of free
Nonetheless, two cloth merchants, Sir Samuel Fludyer
and William Willy represented Chippenham and Devizes in Par49
liament.
A pamphleteer of the period, Israel Maudlit was
supposedly promoted in his work by Lord Hardwicke, Newcastle's
political colleague.
Maudlit, a wool producer, had a position
in the Southampton customs and had influence with the landed
50
interests, particularly Lord Bute.
Lord Rockingham active­
ly extended the interests of the wool manufacturers.^
The
incohesive textile interests, in contrast to the West and East
Indian blocs, exercised indirect influence in Parliament.
Other economic groups were represented in smaller num­
bers.
Only five parliamentarians had direct North American
52
interests during the period of 1754 to 1790.
American
48Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, I, 150-1 and
L. B. Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of
George III (2“vols.; London, 1929), I, 106-123.
^Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolu­
tion , 257.
"^Thomas Carlysle, History of Friedrick II of Prussia
(10 vols.; London, 1888), IX, 102-3.
"^G. H. Guttridge, The Early Career of Lord Rockingham,
1730-1765 (Berkeley, 1952)7"Tj:
■^Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, I, 159-60.
26
colonials had little desire to return to England as did the
tropical interests.
Remnants of the Levant or ’’Turkey" and
Muscovy or "Russian” companies were still active, but their
influence was infinitesimal in the period of this study.
The British empire was primarily a commercial exten­
sion of Britain--promoted by British enterprise, regulated
and usually supported by Parliament.
Vested^ interests devel­
oped in Britain as representatives of colonial and trading
i
areas, of commodity interests and of joint stock companies.
By 1754, the British mercantile groups in Parliament comprised
a significant bloc in the lower house.
The extent to which
their strength influenced the course of the war and the
terms of the peace remains to be seen.
Ill
BRITISH MERCANTILE INTERESTS DURING
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR, 1754-1760
The British mercantile interests influenced imperial
policies in time of peace.
Understandably, these same in­
terests influenced imperial policies in time of war by either
supporting or criticizing governmental policies.
Generally
speaking, if the war policies appealed to the commercial in­
stincts of the interests and ultimately promised financial
reward, the interests supported the government's position.
Similarly, the commercial community opposed those governmen­
tal policies which did not offer chances of commercial ad­
vancement.
Although not always united in opinion, the mer­
cantile interests were influential in the direction of the
war: their parliamentary representation was, in fact, the
focal point of their imperial attitudes.
The City of London, the center of the empire's com­
mercial activity and merchant opinion, found itself deeply
concerned with the policies advocated and promoted by Wil­
liam Pitt
the Elder. To the City, the victories undoubtedly
implied commercial and territorial gain as well as national
glory; the defeats meant possible financial ruin.^
^"Sutherland, "City of London," 54-57.
28
The traditional position of the City in national
politics in the eighteenth century was anti-ministerial.
In this position, the support given by the country gentlemen and by the organized opinion of the City often defined
the strength of the opposition to those in power.
2
Thus the
3
City was often active in 'out-whigging the Whigs.'
During
the period under consideration, Pitt successfully broke through
the power of the landed interests.
He maintained this pre­
carious position, in Sutherland's words, "by the general
recognition of his essentiality to win the war and by his
popularity not only with the country gentry in parliament
but with the public opinion outside the h o u s e . T h u s , while
traditionally anti-ministerial, the City found itself allied
with the cause of Pitt, the "Great Commoner," in the years
1756-61.
The elected politicians of the City were, on the whole,
the urban counterpart of the country gentlemen.**
Often called
"Radicals" during the reign of George III, the term "Chathamite City Radicals" is associated with the M.P.'s who repre­
sented the City of London in Chatham's time.
Each in this;
2
According to Namier, parties were almost non-existent.
L. B. Namier, "Monarchy and the Party System," and "Country
Gentlemen in Parliament, 1750-1785," Personalities and Powers
(London, 1955), 13-38 and 59-77 respectively.
3
Sutherland, "City of London," 58.
4 Ibid.. 64.
Namier. England in the Age of the American Revolution,
211.
29
group had mercantile or financial interests; each had served
as Lord Mayor of the City.
These politicians represented the
most politically conscious constituency in eighteenth century
Britain.
Who were these members of Parliament?
William Beck­
ford, a prosperous sugar planter, was the spokesman for the
City interests.
Another City elder, Slingsby Bethell, a for­
mer plantation agent in Antigua, was active in the exporta^
tion of woolens to the Guinea Coast, and the purchase there
of slaves and cotton.
He was also president of the British
white herring fisheries until his death in 1758.
Another,
Sir Richard Glyn, banker and insurance company executive, led
the City as Lord Mayor in 1758-9 in support of the Administra­
tion.^
Sir Robert Ladbroke, distiller and banker, supported
Beckford*s leadership in the City, although he was never a
follower of Pitt.
8
Finally, Sir John Barnard, born of a mer­
chant family, was a prominent insurer at Lloyd's.
A parliamen­
tary member for London for 39 years, he declined in importance
in the years 1754-61 and was displaced by Beckford as leader
9
of the City's popular forces.
All of these M.P.'s were ac­
tive in the protection of the interests of the City.
6
Journal of the House of Commons, XXII
(1732-7), 566.
^Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 505-6.
8
Ibid., II, 49.
®Ibid.
30
William Beckford,deserves special consideration.
B o m in Jamaica, he held positions in that island's assem­
bly as well as in the customs service before returning to
England and becoming M.P. for Shaftesbury.
In 1754 he was'
elected for London and continued to serve that constituency
until 1770.
10
However, his interests were not solely center­
ed in the City, for he informed the Duke of Bedford that his
political influence "carried three cities and two boroughs"
in the election of 1754. 11
Although a supporter of Bedford,
he attached himself to Pitt's cause when the problems of
war brought the Great Commoner to the fore.
Beckford, deeming himself the spokesman of the City,
developed a close tie with Pitt.
This association gave the
merchants, to quote Christie, "a novel sense of exerting influence at the center of national power." 12
The alliance is
evident in Beckford's letter to Pitt dated November
6
, 1756.
He expressed hope that Pitt would be "the instrument of our
deliverance" and he offered his support for a new system *
which he saw as being absolutely necessary.
"In the militia
10
See Namier, "Country Gentlemen," in Personalities
and Powers, 68-72 for a description of the Tory~nie¥tTin^s~and
Beckford's position as leader of the country gentlemen in 1760.
-LXJohn Russell (ed.), Correspondence of John, Fourth
Duke of Bedford (3 vols.; London” 1842), II, 145; see also
Sutherland, ''City of London," 65, 2n on his qualification as
being a citizen of London.
1o
I. R. Christie, Wilkes? Wyvill and Reform: the Parliamentary Reform Movement in British Politics (London, 1962),
ITT
31
of Jamaica I was no more than a common soldier," Beckford
wrote, and pledged, "in our present warfare I intend to act
as one of your private soldiers without commission." 13 As
the war progressed, Beckford became one of Pitt's most enthu­
siastic supporters.
By 1758, Beckford also had become one of Pitt’s prin­
cipal confidants.
"France is our object," he advised Pitt,
"perfidious France: reduce her power, and Europe will be at
.,14
rest.
At the same time he advised Pitt to attack an is­
land, assumed by von Ruville to be Martinique; in fact, he
15
suggested a method of attacking that valuable French island.
1 f
i
Pitt accepted this advice.
After the ministry had consid­
ered the matter, he ordered an expedition to the West Indies.
However, the French fortifications at Martinique proved too
strong for the task force which then turned on Guadeloupe, the
center of the French sugar trade and a privateers' stronghold.
Guadeloupe was an easy conquest, for it fell into British
hands in May of 1759.
Although Beckford's plans did not al­
ways meet with complete success, Pitt relied upon his friend's
knowledge and opinions regarding West Indian matters.
1%. S. Taylor and J. H. Pringle (eds.), The Corresondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (4 vols.; London,
838) , 1 ," 353.
5
•^Chatham Correspondence, I, 353.
^Albert yon Ruville, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham
(3 vols.; London, 1907), II, 222.
16Ibid.. 223-4.
32
Beckford was less knowledgeable regarding the Bri­
tish designs on New France.
Nonetheless in a letter to Pitt
dated December 18, 1758 he put forth a plan to end with one
campaign the war with France in North America.
"By the tak­
ing of Quebec and Montreal,'1 he wrote, "the two great heads
of Canada and of the French power in North America are des­
troyed; and consequently the limb of that body must wither
and decay without any further f i g h t i n g . A l t h o u g h a sub­
sequent letter from Wolfe contained better and more exact
advice for Pitt, the support of the City in this enterprise
■i- 18
was omnipresent.
In addition to the City, the joint stock companies
played prominent roles in shaping the policies of war and
trade.
Of the several companies under consideration, the
English East India Company was the most active in an imper­
ial capacity.
During the period from 1754 to 1761 it gained
the military and commercial domination of India.
The Levant
Company, a small organization with commercial interests in
Turkey, was of minor importance; yet, even this company faced
French rivalry in this period.
The Hudson's Bay Company did
not assume a military role as did the English East India Com­
pany, yet its fur traders were vitally interested in maintain
ing control of that area defined by the settlement following
^ Chatham Correspondence, I, 376-78.
18
Ibid.. 378-81.
33
the Treaty of Utrecht as well as in making further gains
at the expense of the French fur traders.
We will now
consider these companies and their roles in the protection
and expansion of their commercial interests in those areas
where France constituted a threat.
In late 1754, the English East India Company and
the rival French company had amicably agreed to respect
each other's commercial rights in India.
However, in June of
1756 the rise of a new nabob in Bengal led to a successful
Indian attack against the English company's fort at Calcutta,
the principal fort of that company in Bengal.
An expedition
led by Robert Clive, a company agent who had been in India
for some time, sailed from St. George, the key English post
in the Carnatic, for the mouth of the Ganges.
By March 1757,
this force had successfully re-established the Company's
control at Calcutta.
Following the French attack on Minorca, the British
issued an order to all the King's officers "to distress the
19
enemy as far as it is in their power."
This prompted Clive
to attack Fort d'Orleans, a strong French garrison in Bengal.
The fall of that place and Chandernagore gave the English
East India Company virtually full control of Bengal.
Yet the
nabob, Siraj-ud-daula, still posed a threat to English domina­
tion.
His defeat at the Battle of Blissey in mid-1757 ended
this threat.
19
Gipson, British Empire, VIII, 127.
34
The stirring events following this victory brought
to the British the military and political supremacy of the
Carnatic, thereby giving the English East India Company the
20
dominant commercial position in India.
During these years
the Company, supported by the British Navy, conquered the
Coromandel Coast and gained control of a line of forts from
Madras to Pondicherry.
the French disasters.
Financial and naval problems led to
Money and supplies were essential to
the French as well as to the British operations.
Therefore
the naval victories of Pocock over d'Ache gave Britain the
supremacy at sea which spelled the end of French control in
that region.
In early 1761 the British proceeded to destroy
Pondicherry, the Louisburg of India, so that British domina­
tion of the region was complete and the English East India
Company remained the chief trading power on the great sub­
continent .
In contrast to these significant imperial developments,
the problems of the Levant Company appear minute.
In late
November 1758 a unique case came before the Board of Trade.
In the face of French competition, the Levant Company had
issued an order "against carrying French cloth or other woolen
manufactures of France to Turkey.' 21
The Board inquired of
the representatives of the Company "what effect the stagnation
2 ^For a full description of these eventful years see
ibid., 137-171.
^ Journal of the Board of Trade. LXV (1758), 430.
35
of the French trade to Turkey, as well in the last war as in
this, might have had to increase ours." 22
The Company an­
swered that during the previous war the French trade to Tur­
key received little obstruction.
Regarding the Seven Years'
War, the Company officials explained that the French still
continued to trade in neutral ships and had "laid in a considerable stock of cloths in Turkey before the war broke out." 23
The Board could do little more than praise the Company's zeal
"in taking such early measures to put a stop as far as lay
within their power to a trade so inconsistent with the nation24
al honor and interest."
It is evident from the above re­
marks that even a small company, such as the Levant Company,
was concerned with rival French trading interests.
Reference has already been made to the Hudson's Bay
Company's claims in the period before the Seven Years' War.
25
In its claims of 1750 the Company sought the extension of its
control southward to the forty-ninth parallel.
It renewed
this claim on December 7, 1759 and also submitted to Pitt a
list of damages against its rivals, the French fur traders.
A week later, when the matter came before the Board of Trade,
the Secretary:
Ibid.. 431.
22
23
24
25
Ibid.
Ibld.
Supra, 9.
36
Read a Memorial of the Hudson's Bay Company,
containing a state of their claims, with re­
spect to limits and other points provided
for by the Treaty of Utrecht, and praying
that the Board would intercede with His Ma­
jesty, that the said company may have full
satisfaction with respect to such claims
upon a peace with France. 6
On December 19, 1759 the Hudson's Bay Company's claims were
27
formally recognized by the Board of Trade.
William Pitt eagerly supported the claims of the Hud­
son's Bay Company.
Rich maintains that Pitt's general imper­
ial concepts of trade and his aims of ending French control
in North America made the Hudson's Bay Company his natural
ally.Yet,
the fall of Pitt did not jeopardize the posi­
tion of the Company in the steps toward peace.
By 1761 the
fate of Canada had been determined: the Company's claims had
been recognized by His Majesty's government, the fall of New
France was complete with the capitulation of Montreal, and
the British interlopers were quick to move into the fur trad29
ing routes vacated by the French.
British merchants had
within their grasp a monopoly to supply the fur markets of
Europe.
^ Journal of the Board of Trade, LXVI (1759), 73.
27
Ibid.. 74.
^Rich, Hudson's Bay Company. I, 656.
pq
...the Indians reported to the master of Moose Fac­
tory (in the summer of 1761) that the English were 'as thick as
Muskettos' on the Nottaway River, and other streams flowing
into James Bay," from W. S. Wallace, The Pedlars from Quebec
(Toronto, 1954), 3.
2
37
The British woolen interests, especially those of
Yorkshire, reacted very favorably to the conquest of Canada.
"In the West Riding of Yorkshire,1’ Rockingham commented, "we
look upon the war in North America as merely carried on for
30
the benefit of the cloth trade."
To British wool exporters
the conquest of Canada meant new markets.
The merchants of the ports of western England com­
plained of a loss of trade in the war years.
In addition,
they complained that their ships had been sunk by French
rivals, that the British convoy system had been inadequate,
and that the war had increased insurance rates.
Moreover,
the impressment of many fishermen, claimed a complaint to
the Board of Trade from Bristol merchants, caused a labor
shortage and caused a loss to the merchants who had made ad­
vances to seamen "for clothing to be worn on the Newfoundland
voyage, only to have these men fall into the hands of the im31
pressment officers."
The Board merely forwarded these com­
plaints to the Admiralty which considered the fisheries an
accessory to British naval power.
Graham points out that "ac­
cording to the famous statute of 10 and 11 William III, cap.
25 (1699), the first and most important object of the fishery
was the 'raising and maintaining a number of our fleets in time
^Guttridge, The Early Career of Lord Rockingham, 19.
^Lounsbury, British Fishery at Newfoundland, 316.
38
of danger.1"
oo
Thus the merchants engaged in the fisheries
grumbled with little hope of gaining satisfaction for their
demands.
By way of contrast, the slave traders did not suffer
in the war years; in fact, from the beginning of the war they
were active in extending their trading interests.
In 1756
Thomas Gumming, a trader, submitted to Pitt a design to gain
Senegal from the French.
That Pitt encouraged Cumming ,in
this plan is evident in his letter dated February 9, 1757:
...(i) think the service you are going upon
to Africa so likely to prove beneficial to
the public, that, in case success attends
your endeavours, I promise you .my best assis­
tance in obtaining an exclusive charter in
your favour for a limited term of years,
with regard to that vein of trade which your
industry ^nd risk shall have opened to your
country.
This plan, which called for a force to attack Senegal, was
considered by the Board of Trade and approved by the ministry.
As a result, by the end of 1757
in British hands.
(1758)
both Senegal and Goree were
"By these successes," the Annual Register
reported, "we have taken from
valuable branches of
their commerce,
34
ble of abundant improvement."^
the
enemy one ofthemost
and
one of themostcapa-
32G. S. Graham, Sea Power and British North America,
1783-1820: A Study in British Colonial Policy (Cambridge* Mass.,
T94iy, w . -------------------------------^ Chatham Correspondence, I, 223-3.
^ Annual Register
(1758), 75.
39
These victories were significant primarily because .
they enabled the British to gain control of the French slave
trade.
According to John Entick, an historian of the times,
Senegal supplied the French West Indies with 1400 slaves
^
35
annually and Goree supplied another 400.^
In the period
from 1758 to 1762 the slave trade almost doubled and brought
to the traders unprecedented prosperity. 36 The victories
were also important because the British gained the French
37
monopoly of rubber and numerous other commodities.
The last object of our investigation of the mercantile
interests and the war in the years 1754-60 is the West Indian
commercial community.
These interests were concerned with
the value of sugar in Britain and with the protection of
their investments in the Caribbean.
The West Indian planter interests confronted a fluc­
tuating sugar market.
During the war years, the London mar­
ket reacted noticeably to the changing fortunes of the war.
The conquests of the rival French sugar islands produced an
increase in sugar imported into Britain and consequently
a
Oc
■'John Entick, The General History of the Late War
(London, 1765), III, 66-7, used by Gipson, British Empire,
VIII, 176.
36Cambridge History of the British Empire: Volume I,
The Old Empire t,o 178!! (ISfew York, 1929), 502.
(Based on
slave trade statistics in C.O. 325/2).
“5 7
Annual Register (1758), 75n, 76n, reports "The prin­
cipal commodities which the French import from this settlement
are that valuable article gum Senegal, hides, bees-wax, ele­
phants teeth, cotton, gold dust, negro slaves, ostrich feathers,
ambergis, indigo and civet."
40
decrease in the price.
For example, the price of sugar fell
in 1760 as a result of the capture of Guadeloupe.
On July 18,
1760 the Lascelles House, the famous sugar dealers, "reported
that clayed sugars which would have sold as high as 85 s. per
38
cwt. that time last year, had now gone for 52 s. 9d."
On
the other hand, the price of sugar rose when the market ex­
panded.
The British blockade of the French coast in 1756 and
again in 1759 created in those years an unexpected market for
British sugar sales in Europe. 39 The absentee planters were
justifiably disturbed by the addition of the French islands
to the British empire: the conquest of Martinique and Guade­
loupe meant the inclusion of those two valuable sugar islands
within the protective fence of the mercantile system.
Such
inclusion spelled competition with the finer French sugars
from these islands and a challenge to the power of the plan­
ters who made their fortunes in the more established islands
such as Jamaica and Barbados.
The West Indian planters were anxious to maintain fi­
nancial control over their colonial investments.
the matter involved money supply and exchange.
The crux of
A scarcity of
coin, first and foremost in Jamaica but later in Barbados,
because of the need of currency in Europe, left the merchants
^R. Pares, "The London Sugar Market, 1740-1769," Eco­
nomic History Review, 2nd ser., IX (Dec., 1956), 262.
39Ibid.. 255.
41
in the British Caribbean with little purchasing power in the
form of cash.
The Jamaican Assembly sought to remedy this
situation by passing the famous Jamaica Act of 1758 which as40
certained the value of Spanish milled money.
Several persons with West Indian interests appeared
before a Board of Trade inquiry into this act.
Alderman
Beckford and Rose Fuller, both wealthy absentee planters,
complained "that by raising the nominal value of the coin,
creditors would be greatly i n j u r e d . I n response, an agent
from Jamaica presented his case and criticized both Beckford
and Fuller who, he charged, had not been in Jamaica for some
years and were ignorant of the situation there.
He claimed
that although Beckford and Fuller "in their own particular
concerns might not want cash," in Jamaica the scarcity of coin ■
was intolerable.^
The absentee planters, eager to retain their economic
control in the colonies, were successful in gaining the repeal
of the Jamaica Act.
The Board of Trade, ignoring the pleas
of the agent, recommended the repeal of the Act on March 7,
/1
1760.
As creditors in the financial structure of plantation
investment, the West Indian planters believed that any increase
40
Journal of the Board of Trade, LXVII (1760), 90.
Ibid.
4 2
Ibld., 92.
43Ibid.. 93.
42
in the value of the coin in the islands by the recognition
of Spanish money would decrease their investment.
There is no indication that those West Indian plan£
ters who resided in Britain suffered from the war. In fact,
James Massie, a pamphleteer, was active in attacking the op­
ulence of that group.
His pamphlet A State of the British
Sugar-Colony Trade (London, 1759) claimed that the sugar
planters gained profits double those of the landholders of
44
England.
In A Computation of the Money that hath been
Raised upon the People of Great Britain by the Sugar Planters,
written the following year, he claimed that the profits in
1759 of L840,000 would pay and clothe an army of 40,000 sol­
diers for one year.^
Massie, then, viewed the wealth of the
West Indian interests in the light of the growing national
debt caused by an expensive war in Europe and in the colonial
areas across the seas.
Was Massie right?
By relating the London sugar prices
in the years 1739 to 1763 to the costs of insurance, transpor­
tation and the structure of duties, Pares concluded that the
planter neither gained nor lost during the period after 1739.
46
The planters were concerned primarily with the security of
^Pitman, Development of the British West Indies, 344.
4 5
46
Ibid.. 345.
Richard Pares, War and Trade in the West Indies
(Oxford, 1936), 512-4.
43
their colonial investments and the maintenance of the factor
partnership which they financed from London.
The credit of
the sugar colonies did not rest on the problem of war in the
Caribbean, Pares concluded, but "on* the financial weather in
London.
The British mercantile interests, then, generally fa­
vored the prosecution of the war.
The City, directly allied
with the administration, sought the expansion of their commer- .
cial interests.
The East India Company and the Hudson's Bay
Company made large territorial claims with the support of a
ministry dedicated to prosecuting a war at sea and in the colo­
nies.
These companies remained virtually unchallenged after
the fall of the French in India and Canada.
The slave traders
made great gains in the war period due to the conquest of a
number of French sugar islands in need of a constant labor
supply, and due to the conquest of the source of that supply.
The West Indian interests were faced with problems of a fluc­
tuating sugar market, problems of acting as creditors for and
absentee landlords of their plantations, and problems of com­
petition from the sugar producers of the captured French sugar
islands.
But these interests, which gained financially with
the progress of the war, saw Pitt as an economic saviour and
saw in the great conquests of the war extensive possibilities
for permanent commercial growth.
47Ibid.. 516.
Nonetheless some of these
44
interests found the years of peace making to be as promi­
sing as the years of the war to 1760 would have led them to
believe.
IV
THE MERCANTILE INTERESTS AND THE COMING
OF THE PEACE, 1760-1762
A total British victory over the French became a
near reality with the British conquests in India, Canada and
the West Indies.
The last years of the war were marked by
the attempts of the mercantile interests to protect their
positions.
The extensive successes of the war produced a
desire by each of the mercantile interests to retain the com­
mercial gains created by the war.
The British mercantile interests looked upon the fall
of New France as an opportunity to expand their trade into
the conquered territories.
The Hudson's Bay Company, chief
amongst these interests, sought to gain control of the vast
fur-producing areas west of the St. Lawrence Valley; such
control would greatly increase the area of the Company's opera­
tion.
Thus the Company jealously guarded its interests out
of fear that the non-company traders would break the'Company's
monopoly.
The Company, after failing to receive any compensa­
tion from the French for damages to its trade, now found that
these English interlopers, dubbed "Pedlars from Quebec," of­
fered a great challenge to the Company's domination of the
home markets shared previously only with the fur traders from
New York.^
^"Rich claims that since it was obvious that Canada would
be retained, the Company claims were now a domestic matter.
The Company wrote1 off the debt attributed to French damages.
The "Account of the French Nation" amounted to about L100,000.
Rich, Hudson's Bay Company, I, 657-9*
46
The trade statistics indicate the rapid growth of
2
furs imported into Britain after the fall of New France.
Imports for the year 1761 were double those of 1760 and
those for the year 1762 showed an even greater increase in
volume over 1761.''
Of the 173,586 beaver skins imported in
1762, 93,630 came from Quebec, 50,499 from Hudson’s Bay, and
4
14,912 from New York.
It is evident from these figures
that the Company faced serious competition.
Clearly, the
Company’s so-called monopoly was being undermined.
Neverthe­
less, the conquest of Canada gave Britain a complete control
of the fur trade: this constituted one of the chief commer­
cial consequences of the war.
Both the Board of Trade and the ministry were anxious
to include the newly conquered territory within the commercial
policies of the empire.
On February 5, 1761 the Board took
up the matter of ’’His Majesty’s Dominion of Canada in North
America in respect to the regulations, which may be necessary
for putting the trade and commerce of the said country under
the like regulations, as have been prescribed for other Bri5
tish Colonies in America.”
On February,11, 1761 the Board
2
See Appendix III, drawn from Beer, British Colonial
Policy, 214.
3
Ibid.
^Ibid.
^Journal of the Board of Trade. LXVIII (1761), 163.
47
of Trade recommended the inclusion of Canada within the commercial framework of the empire.
recommendations.
6
The ministry accepted these
The King, speaking in Parliament on March 9*
1761, echoed the policies of the ministry when he spoke of
the conquest of Canada as being "of the utmost importance to
the security of our colonies in North America, and to the ex­
tension of commerce and navigation of my subjects."^
What was the position of the Hudson's Bay Company re­
garding these policies?
The Company was intent on maintaining
its position in the British markets as well as restating its
territorial claims.
8
If the Company could gain control of
the fur-bearing areas claimed by the English traders from
Quebec, the chief rival would be excluded by law from that
region.- On June 1, 1761 the Company forwarded its claims to
Lord Egremont, Secretary of State, and requested a conference
"on matters relative to their trade and settlements, and of a
9
demand they have on the French nation."
On September 8 , 1762
the Company reitterated its claims.
However, the boundaries were not defined until after
the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
6
On March 23, 1763 the
Ibid., 164.
^William Cobbett, Parliamentary History of England (36
vols.; London, 1813), XV, 10l8.
8o
nr
^
Supra, p . 35-6.
9
P. C. Phillips, The Fur Trade
1961), I, 543.
f
(2 vols.; Norman, Okla.,
48
Company, at the request of Egremont, defined its claims in
Labrador.
10
And, on May 5, 1763 Egremont asked the Board
/
r
of Trade for a general report on the newly acquired territor­
ies and how they could best be utilized.
This important re­
port recommended the creation of a province of Canada and an
Indian territory separated from Canada.^
These drawn out
proceedings finally resulted in a defined boundary between
the Hudson's Bay Company's territory and the lands reserved
for the Indians: the Proclamation of 1763 defined the Province
of Canada and the Indian lands which separated the Company's
territory from that of Canada.
12
By the Proclamation of 1763,
any trader possessing a license issued by the Crown could
trade in the area reserved for Indians.
The Company gained
nominal control over all non-Spanish areas "beyond the Heads
or Sources of any of the Rivers which fall into the Atlantic
13
Ocean from the West and North-West."
Thereafter, the Com­
pany entered into the period of its greatest expansion.
The
Company challenged the competition offered by the English
^Rich, Hudson's Bay Company/ I, 638.
^A. H. Basye, The Lords Commissioners of Trade and
Plantations, commonly known as the Board o£ Trade, 1748-1782
:--------------- ---------(NeV"Haven, I9257V T78.-----12
See Map I. The boundaries of this map are based on
the Proclamation of October 7, 1763 as found in C. S. Brigham
(ed.), British Royal Proclamations relating to America^ 16031783, XII, Transaction of the American Antiquarian Society
(Worchester” Mass., 1914), 212-18.
13
Ibid., 216.
49
interlopers who had replaced the French fur traders after
1760 and eventually incorporated that group into the Hudson's
Bay Company.
The control of the -Newfoundland fisheries constituted
an issue of discord not only among the principal maritime
powers of Europe but among the British themselves.
tended to exclude France from the area.
Pitt in­
To him the fall of
New France meant the "cession of all Canada and its appurten­
ances, the island of Cape Breton and all other islands in
the gulph and in the river of St. Lawrence, with the right of
fishing, which is inseparably incident to the possession of
the aforesaid coasts and of the canals and straights which
lead to them. ,-14- As long as Pitt remained predominant in
the cabinet, he maintained that the retention of Newfoundland
by Britain and the exclusion of the French from their fishing
rights should constitute a sine qua non of peace with France.^
But, with his power declining, the cabinet overruled Pitt's
proposal to continue the war rather than renew the clause of
the Treaty of Utrecht which allowed the French to fish off
16
Newfoundland.
^From the British Memorial of July 29, 1761 as quoted
in Kate Hotblack, "The Peace of Paris, 1763," Transactions of
the Royal Historical Society, 3d ser., II (London, l908), 235".
15Marjorie Reid, "Pitt's Decision to Keep Canada in
1751," Report of the Canadian Historical Association, 1926
(Toronto, 1927), 25 ; IBased on a letter of Newcastle to Hardwicke of December 3, 1760 (Add. MSS, 35420, f. 129.)
S. Jucker (ed.), The Jenkinson Papers, 1760-1766
(London, 1949), 9n; based on Add. MSS. 32924, f. 316.
v
50
What were the reasons for Pitt's insistence upon
the exclusive control of the fisheries as a sine qua non of
peace?
Commercially, Britain would gain control of the French
fishing trade and by this, the British fishing interests would
eliminate France, their chief competitor in the marketing of
fish to Spain, Italy and Portugal.
The City took up the
cause of the fishing interests and Beckford urged the total
British control of the fisheries.^
The City's alliance with
Pitt was fully recognized by the rest of the ministers. ’’The
expulsion of French fishermen from the Newfoundland waters,"
von Ruville emphasized, "was a special desire of the London
mercantile world, and the support of this party might easily
18
be lost by a disregard of their wishes."
Thus, due to the
activity of the mercantile interests and their alliance with
Pitt, the British terms for peace in late June, 1761 included
19
the exclusive control of the fisheries.
The Board of Trade made an investigation in 1762 to
determine the value of the fisheries to both Britain and France.
Third
17
Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the R eign of George the
(4 vols.; London, 1894), 1 , 77.
^von Ruville, William Pitt» II, 377.
19
The Duke of Bedford, later British plenipotentiary,
energetically opposed Pitt and the ministry on this point.
Bedford believed that the exclusion of France from the fisheries
would bring "all the naval powers of Europe against us." Bed­
ford Correspondence, III, 26.
^Br. Mus. Add. MSS. 35913, f. 73, Hardwicke Papers
DLXV, 'Papers relating to Canada and Newfoundland'; a summary
of these papers is given in Hotblack, "Peace of Paris," 265-6.
20
51
The findings revealed that in 1762 the French had 14,800 men
engaged in the fisheries while the British had only 7,800
and that France grossed i.467,761 from the trade in that year
compared to *fc388,000 by the British.
21
Small wonder the Board
of Trade stated conclusively that "the Newfoundland Fishery
as a means of wealth and power is of more worth than both
Canada and Guadeloupe."
22
Several contemporaries reached the same conclusion.
Using historic claims of Britain to the areas controlled by
France, an anonymous memorial emphasized the commercial value
of the area, notably its value as a market for exports. "If
these valuable provinces remain quietly in the hands of the
English," the memorial stated, "they will be the masters of
the finest trade in the world, having other nations dependent
on them, and at the same time the finest nursery for seamen
and the greatest consumption of the woolen and other British
manufactures by reason of the coldness of the climate and the
multitude of the vessels to be employed in the business." 23 A
pamphleteer by the name of George Heathcote expressed the value
of the fisheries in terms of naval strength.
Using elaborate
tables to show the naval powers of France and Britain he
O -I
Figures from "Board of Trade Report, 1762," given in
Hotblack, "The Peace of Paris, " 265-6.
^ G . S. Graham, British Policy and Canada. 1774-1791
(Imperial Studies, no. 4; London, 1930), 8,9.
^JHotblack, "The Peace of Paris, " 265.
52
concluded that the French preponderence in the fisheries gave
them the advantage
in the struggles for empire.
It is in­
teresting to note that Heathcote's Letter on Trade (London,
f\f
1762) was addressed to the Mayor and Council of London.
Thus the exclusive control of the fisheries would be
of commercial, strategic and military value to Britain: of
this there was little doubt.
Yet the British ministry after
the fall of Pitt was not prepared to demand the exclusive con­
trol of the fisheries by Britain.
In fact, Pitt's determina­
tion in 1761 to gain a monopoly of the fisheries at all costs
probably brought about the alliance of France and Spain and
25
consequently the extension of the war.
Nonetheless, as will
be demonstrated later, the British fishing interests did make
substantial gains at the expense of the French by the Treaty
of Paris.
I
The positions of the West Indian planter interests and
the slave traders relative to the coming of peace were linked
closely to the conquest of Guadeloupe.
The fall of Guadeloupe
was greeted with mixed emotions in London.
Whereas the Bri­
tish conquest of Guadeloupe in 1759 meant increased markets fcir
the British slave traders, it meant a loss of the privileged
24
:
Lounsbury, British Fishery at Newfoundland, 330.
Or
J. L. Brown, "Spanish Claims to a Share in the New­
foundland Fisheries in the Eighteenth Century," Report of the
Canadian Historical Association- 1925 (Toronto, l9z6), 7& and
Dorn, Competition for Empire, 373.
53
position enjoyed by the planters.
"I congratulate you on
our success at Guadeloupe," wrote Benjamin Franklin's son,
William, from London. "That capitulation is, however, not much
relished here; but I am well convinced that with a little
prudent management it may be made a very valuable acquisi,,26
tion.
The desires of the British colonies in the Caribbean
i
were clear.
The government of Barbados had supplied 600 voluhteers for the conquest of Guadeloupe. 27 Statements from the
Leeward Islands, Montserrat, Antigua, and St. Christopher's
all had indicated approval of the British military effort.
The Antigua Council, for example, saw in the conquest and re­
tention of Guadeloupe the making of a balance between the
southern and northern colonies:
Permit us to hope for a lasting extension of
your southern in proportion to Your Majesty's
northern colonies without which we fear that
the enlargement of the latter may redound
more to the benefit and advantage of the
French than to the British sugar islands, whose
existence seems to depend in a great measure
upon an effectual extinction of that superior­
ity which the French have always maintained in
these islands, until the glorious_era of Your
Majesty's most auspicious reign.2°
Clearly, the smaller British islands favored the retention of
Guadeloupe for reasons of security.
^"Letter of
1759, London," L. W.
Franklin ( 8 vols. to
27
Pares, War
{
William Franklin to Peter Schuyler, June 19,
Labaree (ed.), The Papers of Benjamin
date; New Haven" 1959-1965), VIII, 4l0.
and Trade, 221-2.
^ Ibid.. 223" from 'Antigua Council Minutes,' C.0.9126.
54
On the other hand, the West Indian sugar planters
openly opposed the retention of Guadeloupe.
One anonymous
j
j
pamphleteer, in extoling the value of that island, attacked
the sugar interests.
"Witness the number of the proprietors
of the sugar islands," he said, "that reside at London, and
many of them sit in Parliament.
If they dread Guadeloupe as
i
a rival to their private
interest, they must at the same timb
own, it is a great acquisition to the public wealth and
29
strength.
Thus Guadeloupe," he concluded, "one of the great­
est acquisitions ever Britain made, acquires many powerful
enemies from private views, and has nothing to plead but her
public utility and advantage, often found too feeble an oppo30
nent to the private interest of a few."
In his celebrated pamphlet Considerations on the Pre­
sent: War (London, 1761), Israel Maudlit, a wood producer hav(
ing strong connections with the landed interests in Parliament,
launched a vicious attack upon the sugar interests.
"During
the whole of Mr. Pitt's administration," he wrote in the preface, "no one had as much of his confidence as Mr. Beckford."
31
29 "Reasons for Keeping Guadeloupe at a Peace, prefer­
able to Canada, 1760," D. B. Horn and Mary Ransome (eds.),
j
English Historical Documents, 1714-1783 (New York, 1957), 781.
W. L. Grant, "The Colonial Policy of Great Britain,
1760-1765," Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1906 (? vols.; Washington, 1908), I, 184, Dorn Competi­
tion ror limpire, 363 and Kate Hotblack, Chatham's Colonial Po­
licy (London, 1917), 58-61.
Maudlit claimed that Beckford dreaded Tan increase of the, Bri­
tish islands in the Caribbean "lest that might lessen the value
of his lands in Jamaica.”32 That Guadeloupe and other islands
were returned to France can, in part, be attributed to the
pressure put on Pitt through Beckford on behalf of the planter
interests of the more established sugar islands.
The British made great commercial gains during their
occupation of Guadeloupe.
Although the governor of the island
had claimed that in the last nine months of 1759 not one ship
had come with supplies from Europe, British traders soon found
the markets of Guadeloupe to be lucrative. 33 For example, a
group of Liverpool slave traders claimed that while Guadeloupe
was in British hands, they had imported 12,000 slaves.
As in
the case of Canada, the ministry quickly brought Guadeloupe
under British imperial control; an administration for the co^
3
^
lony was formed four months after the military conquest.
In
February 1760 the Board of Trade included Guadeloupe as a co­
lony within the jurisdiction of the same economic regulations
35
as other colonies.
By 1762, Guadeloupe served as a popular
market for British exports; in fact, it ranked third, after
" Ibid.
^^G.L. Beer, "The Colonial Policy of Great Britain, 17601765,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association,
1906(2 vols.; WashingtonT 1908), I, 184, Dorn, Competitionfor
Empire, 363 and Kate Hotblack, Chatham’s Colonial Policy, 58-6r.
•^^William Burke received an appointment as Secretary of
Guadeloupe on September 12, 1759. Great Britain, Acts of the
Privy Countil, Colonial Series ( 6 vols.; London, 1908-12), IV,
ix, 428. Two years later he was. advocating, in an anonymous
pamphlet, the retention of that island.
35Ibid.
56
Jamaica' and Barbados as a market.
36
The merchants of Liver­
pool, 145 in total, stressing the importance of Guadeloupe.to
slave traders and British exporters alike, petitioned the mini37
stry'for the retention of that island.
Little wonder that
Governor Dalrymple, learning of the return of the island to
France as an article in the treaty, wrote to the Board of Trade
expressing great disappointment.
He rightly regretted that
the French would reap the fruits of Britain's labors. 38
The interrelated questions involving the retention of
Canada versus Gaudeloupe after 1759 and the retention of Ca­
nada versus the French sugar islands after 1761 provoked a
pamphlet war and considerable public controversy.
Historians,
primarily Beer, Grant and Alvord, have attempted to view
these controversies in the light of the mercantilist theories
39
then prevalent.
One anonymous pamphlet, Reasons for Keeping Guadeloupe
at a Peace, preferable to Canada (London, 1760), deserves con­
sideration because it is a compendium of the arguments put
36From a table of British exports to northern and south­
ern colonies found in Beer, British Colonial Policy, 138.
O
*7
"Memorial of the Merchants of Liverpool Trading to
Africa, Nov. 3, 1762," Elizabeth Donnan (ed.), Documents Illustrative of the History of Slave Trade to America (5 vols.;
Washington, D.C., 1930-9), II, 5l4.
^Dorn, Competition for Empire. 363.
•^For a full account of the pamphlets see Beer, Bri­
tish Colonial Policy, 114 ff.; Grant, "Canada versus Guadeloupe,"
735, 43'; C. W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Poli­
tics (2 vols.; Cleveland, 1919), I, 55-66, II, 253-64 and C.H.
Fryer, "Further Pamphlets for the Canada-Guadeloupe Controversy,"
Mississippi Valley Historical Review, IV (September, 1917),
227-30..
57
forth at the time.
According to the pamphleteer, those de­
siring the retention of Canada had argued, ’’that we entered
into the war only upon account of America,.., that the trade
of North America is the great foundation of all the British
wealth and power..., that the fur trade might be entirely our
own..., that one ship of the Hudson Bay Company is often so
rich as to bring home more value than ten sugar ships: (and)
that we have a sufficiency of sugar islands already....1' He
claimed that according to the promoters of the retention of
Canada, Guadeloupe was of no significance compared with Ja­
maica. ^
On the other hand, the pamphleteer explained that
those desiring the retention of Guadeloupe argued "that Guade­
loupe we certainly have and that Canada we have not; the fate
of it is still dubious..." and, that "if our barriers in Ameri
ca shall be fixed by treaty to the certain limits...and Cape .
Breton retained or demolished...(this) would render America
...as secure as the instability of human affairs can admit."
Finally, "Canada can add nothing; but...a little improvement
^"Reasons for Keeping Guadeloupe," 778-81. Other im­
portant pamphlets accessible in print are B. Franklin's "The
Interest of Great Britain Considered with Regard to Her Colo­
nies and the Acquisitions of Canada and Guadeloupe," (London,
1760), A. H. Smyth (ed.), The Writings of Benjamin Franklin
(10 vols.; New York, 1907)7 IV, 32-8l and J. Campbellvs "Considerations on the Nature of the Sugar Trade," (London, 1763),
extracts printed in G. S. Callender (ed.), Selections from
the Economic History of the United States, 1765-1860 (Boston,
1909), 81-3.------------ ------------- --------“~
Reasons for Keeping Guadeloupe," 778-9.
58
in the fur trade...(and)...preventing the French from distur42
bing us in that quarter of the world for some time...."
Such
were some of the arguments used in the pamphlet war over the
question of the retention of Canada or Guadeloupe.
The pamphleteer, having summarized the arguments, proi
ceeded to describe the economic importance of Guadeloupe. nThe
S
sugar trade is far preferable to the fur trade, ’5 he claimed.*
"What does a few hats signify, compared to that article of lux­
ury,
sugar.
Sugar islands made America more valuable to
Britain; thus, since America was growing strong, he maintained,
Britain would need more sugar islands.
In conclusion, the
pamphleteer argued ’’What can Canada yield to Britain... but a
little extension of the fur trade?
Whereas Guadeloupe can
furnish as much sugar, cotton, rum, and coffee, as all the is­
lands we have put together, and consume a vast quantity of
the British and American produce, from which trade the shipping
44
and naval strength of Britain must greatly increase.”
This
pamphlet was typical of the interest shown at the time in the
ideas of a self-contained and balanced empire, and of a role;
for the West Indies in the division of labor of the empire, j
Despite the activity of the pamphleteers favoring Guade­
loupe, Pitt was determined to retain Canada.
42
Ibid., 779.
43.,.,
Ibid.
44Ibid.. 780.
According to
1
59
Walpole, Pitt explained his difficult position to the House of
Commons in the following terms: ’'Some are for keeping Canada,
some Guadeloupe; who will tell me which I shall be hanged for
not keeping?"^
His alliance with the Hudson!s Bay Company;
his tie with Beckford, and thus with the planter interests of
the more established colonies; his desire to end French control
in North America; and his desire to exclude France from the
fisheries: all explain his demand for the retention of Canada.
Although the peace negotiations of 1761 failed, Pitt still
i
demanded the retention
of Canada.
After his resignation, the
ministry maintained this claim, although acquiescing on the
question of the exclusive control of the fisheries.
In a
letter to Lord Hardwicke on April 17, 1761, the Duke of New­
castle, Pitt's colleague in the ministry, explained that Pitt's
plans for attacking the French East Indies, Belleisle and Martinique were intended to insure the gaining of the fisheries. 46
Clearly, Pitt demanded Canada at all costs.
Diplomacy ultimately resolved the complex question of
Canada versus Gaudeloupe.
According to Reid, Pitt accepted
the choice of Canada when Choiseul, the French Foreign Minister,
45
Walpole, Memoirs of George III, I, 26. J. M. Sosin,
in his Whitehall ancT the Wilderness; the Middle West in Bri-j
tish Colonial Policy, 1760-1775 (Lincoln. Neb., 1962). 8 . al­
though understanding the pressures upon Pitt from political
quarters within the ministry, fails to consider the general
pressure on the "Great Commoner" from the nation at large and
the specific pressures on him from the mercantile interests.
46
Reid, "Pitt's Decision to Keep Canada," 25; based on
Add. MSS. 35620, £. 245.
60
suggested to the king of Prussia that France would surrender
her North American possessions as part of a peace agreement.
*
George III, on the recommendation of Pitt, accepted the French
47
terms, and thus the future of Canada was settled.
There­
after the question of Canada or the sugar islands was a matter
of how much of the hinterland of Canada was to be retained
and how many conquered French islands were to be returned.
The fall of Pitt came as a result of his desire to
attack Spain.
The growing amity between the two Bourbon
crowns of Europe after the accession of Charles III in 1759
to the Spanish throne indicated to Pitt the possibility of
a family compact. Spain’s claims against Britain were threeAO
fold.
First, Spain demanded a share in the Newfoundland
fisheries, a condition which Pitt could hardly accept without
recognizing the French demands to which he was violently op49
posed.
Second, Spain questioned Britain s right to cut
logwood in Honduras.
Third, Spain complained of British pri-'
vateers and smugglers who were carrying on an illicit trade
with the port of Monti Cristi in Hispaniola.^
4 7
Choiseul
Ibid.. 26.
Spain's reasons for entering the war were primarily
economic. See Allan Christelow, ’’Economic Background of the
Anglo-Spanish War of 1762,” Journal of Modern History, XVIII
(March, 1946), 22-36.
49
Brown. Spanish Claims to a Share in the Newfound­
land Fisheries , 76-80.
^^Weston Underwood MSS., Historical Manuscripts Com­
mission, Pveport X . Appendix, I, 222.
61
introduced these complaints at the negotiations of 1761,
thereby causing Pitt to take a defensive position against
the increasing possibility of an alliance of France with
Spain.
Pitt learned of the possibilities of an alliance be­
fore the negotiations began in June, 1761.
The motives of
the Spanish were clearly stated in correspondence between the
Spanish ministries in Paris and Madrid.
This correspondence,
intercepted by British agents.and kept secret by Pitt, augmented that which Pitt had feared since- 1757. 51 He warned Henr^
Stanley, the British representative in Paris, as follows: “You
will give watchful attention to the conduct and motives of
the Spanish ambassador and of all matters which may be of con-
,52
sequence and worthy of our knowledge. ’5
On August 15, 1761
France and Spain, as Pitt had anticipated, signed the secret
Pacte de Famille in which France would support Spanish inter­
ests and Spain would come to France's aid by entering the war
., i 53
as soon as possible.
Pitt viewed the continuance and extension of the war
as the only answer since diplomacy had failed to achieve peace
between France and Britain.
This failure he attributed to
■^This correspondence is preserved in Chatham Corres­
pondence , II, 92, 96, 98, 101 and Weston Underwood MSS., 216-21.
52
Chatham Correspondence, II, 126.
CQ
^S. F. Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolu­
tion (New York, 1935), 5n. Thie second family compact of Octo­
b e r 3, 1743 was against the Hapsburgs in Italy as well as
’’against British maritime and colonial ambitions."
62
Spain's support of France.
Only Lord Temple voted with Pitt
at the cabinet meeting of September 18, 1761 on the issue of
54
attacking Spain.
Pitt's design was to carry on a vigorous
war in all areas where the enemy could be found. "This he
looked upon,” said Burke, "to be the only means of procuring
f55
a safe and honorable peace. ?
Pitt's position was commented
upon by Lord Chesterfield: "I have now good reason to believe
that Spain will declare was on us...This will be a great tri­
umph to Mr. Pitt and fully justify his plan of beginning with
56
Spain first."
The role of the mercantile interests in these events
showed the desire of the City to retain a position of power
in the government.
The popularity of Pitt remained strong
after his resignation, although the City temporarily extended
their support to Bute and Egremont.
A week after Pitt's re­
signation, Walpole, the mirror of the times, wrote on October
12, 1761 that the City was "ready to tear Mr. Pitt to pieces
However, on October 24, 1761, the City supported
Pitt.^
"The City have voted an address of thanks to Mr. Pitt,"
Walpole wrote on October 26, 1761, "and have given instructions
—
Hardwicke MSS: Br. Mus. 35870: printed in H.W.V. Temperley, "Pitt's Retirement from Office, 5 Oct., 1761," English
Historical Review, XXI (April, 1906), 327-30.
55
Chatham Correspondence. II, 169n.
Ihid.. 15 6 n, 157n.
57Mrs. Padget Toynbee (ed.), The Letters of Horace Wal­
pole (16 vols.; Oxford, 1904), V, 132.
56
58Ibid.. 135.
63
to their members; the chief articles of which are, to pro­
mote an inquiry into the disposal of the money which has been
granted, and to consent to no peace, unless we are to retain
all, or nearly all, our conquests.
to support the interests of the City
ford's statement of November
Pitt pledged himself
in response to Beck­
, 1761 on behalf of the City in
which he reaffirmed support for Pitt. 60
6
Pitt's continued popularity in the City was evident.
He was asked by Beckford on behalf of the City to attend on
November 9, 1761 the Lord Mayor's annual banquet at the Guildhall to which the leading figures of the country were invited.
6
"Lord Temple and Pitt went and were vehemently applauded,"
according to a report in Egremont's papers, "and the authori­
ties received them with as much ceremony as the King and Queen,
62
which Lord Egremont thinks disgraceful."
Walpole claimed
that riots occurred, and that Sir Samuel Fludyer, the Lord
Mayor, investigated and found that Beckford had promoted the
riots in order to glorify Pitt at the expense of the King and
63
his confidant, Lord Bute.
Although Lord Bute, the "favorite"
SQ
Ibid., 138. The City of London's vote of thanks to
be
Pitt can
found in the Annual Register (1761), 301-2.
60
Letters of Horace Walpole, V, 141 and Chatham Corres­
pondence , II, 158-9.
61Chatham Correspondence, II, 165.
Leconsfield, MSS., Historical Manuscripts Commission,
Report VI, ser. 5, 316.
^^walpole, Memoirs of George III, I, 69-70.
64
of George III, never received acclaim equal to that of Pitt,
he was popular for a short time with the mercantile interests
of the City because of the extensive war effort in the early
part of 1762.
John Wilkes, a member of the London mercantile com­
munity, praised Bute as he had praised Pitt in May, 1761.^
On October 2, 1762 Wilkes reported that Lord Bute's ability
and integrity "have purchased that entire confidence through­
out the nation, and especially in the City of London, that
their purses are as much at his command as their hearts.
Thus
situated," Wilkes concluded, 1,he can have no inducement to
6g"
make a bad peace."
But the fall of Pitt meant a decline in
the possibilities for success which an alliance with Pitt ear­
lier had offered to Wilkes.
Thereafter, the latter was to de­
vote more time to his public attacks upon the King and the
peace party.
The rise of Lord Bute did not offer Wilkes or
the City an alliance with the govenment equal to that which
existed in the days of Pitt's promotion of a vigorous war po­
licy.
The mercantile interests, particularly those of the
City, had a smaller voice in the affairs^of state after Pitt
^ Chatham Correspondence, II, 94. "I will never have
an obligation in a Parliamentary way but to Mr. Pitt and his
friends."
^John Wilkes, North Briton (3 vols.; /no.1-457
Dublin, 1764-5), I, 183-4.
65
withdrew from the ministry.
decreased voice.
tention of Canada.
They were acutely aware of their
The ministry had already agreed on the re­
The British conquests in 1762 of Grenada
and the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Tobago, Cuba, Martinique,
St. Lucia, and Dominica, heightened the fears of those West
Indian planter interests who had earlier seen the retention
of Guadeloupe as a threat to their position of supremacy in
the London sugar market, as a threat to the established posi­
tion of the older Caribbean colonies, and as a threat to their
sales of sugar, molasses and rum to the northern colonies.
After the fall of Pitt, the ministry continued to oblige this
group, but thereafter the ministry and the peace party repre­
sented almost solely the interests of the landed classes.
THE RISE OF THE PEACE PARTY AND THE MAKING OF PEACE
The accession of George III on October 25, 1760 signi­
fied the addition of a third power to the direction of the
affairs of the state.
Whereas George II had maintained two
powers, namely Pitt and Newcastle, in coalition in order to
insure success in the war effort, George III and his confi­
dant Lord Bute decided to enter into the political arena domi­
nated by these figures and their factions.
The King and his
personal advisor intended to sheath the sword and make peace
as soon as possible.
To that end they sought to win the popu­
larity of the nation.
This third faction was less concerned with the mercan­
tile community than Pitt had been; moreover, it represented
the landed interests in Britain and the majority of the voting
public.
Faced with a huge national debt, this faction hoped
to end an expensive war.
By doing this,, the party of George
III and Bute sought to relieve the pressures on the British
public, particularly the landowners who contributed greatly to
the cost of the war.
"Landed men must love peace," stated
Roger Newdigate, one of many country gentlemen who refused to
oppose the peace because of the land tax.*'
This faction's
representative to negotiate a peace, the Duke of Bedford,
^Namier, Personalities and Powers. 72.
67
himself a large land owner, was a "little Englander." - "I
very much fear," he wrote,to Lord Bute on June 13, 1761, "that,
if we retain the greatest part of our conquests out of Europe,
we shall be in danger of over-colonizing and undoing ourselves
by them as the Spaniards have done."
It was evident that in
the negotiations for peace the mercantile interests would not
receive full consideration of their commercial position which
they expected as a result of the enlargement of the empire dur­
ing the war.
1
The peace demands of the King and Bute were less than
*
those of Pitt.
Whereas Pitt would not have peace on any terms
other than those the military situation appeared to justify,
the King wanted a "safe and honorable peace" for which he was
willing, he claimed in his accession speech, to prosecute' a
3
vigorous war.
In this respect he reflected the nation at
large.
"The nation wanted peace," Lord John Russell stated in
his preface to the Bedford correspondence, "if it could be had
on such terms as England would dictate, and Mr. Pitt approve;
but was neither willing to abandon any of our new possessions
nor to thwart the popular minister under whose direction they
had been acquired."
2
The resignation of Pitt, therefore,
Bedford Correspondence, III, 17.
^von Ruville, William Pitt, II, 391; and William Belsham, Memoirs of the Reign of George III (9 vols.; London,
-------- ----1793) , T r r : --------4
Bedford Correspondence, III, xv.
68
produced a political vacuum which the King and his friends
were anxious to fill.
With Pitt gone, the ministry could
make peace on less demanding terms.
Lord Bute, meanwhile, made gains in the circles of
government after the accession of his king.
A privy counci­
lor in October 1760, he became Secretary of State in March
1761, a Scottish peer in May 1761, and First Lord of the Trea­
sury and Knight of the Garter in May 1762.
More important, he
soon became the dispenser of royal patronage, and in that ca­
pacity promoted a faction called the ''King’s Friends," who
generally supported the policies of the Crown.
Bute paid a
price for being the "favorite" of the King, for he became in­
creasingly unpopular in the eyes of those who did not receive
the benefits of connection.
The judgment of history has not
redeemed him.^
Before long Bute predominated in the cabinet.
He gained
sole control of foreign affairs when he forced Pitt’s resignation over the question of war with Spain.
His supporter,
Lord Egremont, replaced Pitt in the ministry.
Bute gained
even more power when, anxious for peace in Europe, he opposed
the further granting of a subsidy to Prussia, despite the
^J. H. Plumb, The First Four Georges (London, 1957), 96;
Belsham, Memoirs of the Reign of George III, I, 7-8; Grant
Robertson, Chatham"and the British Empire (New York, 1948), 115;
and Alvin Redman, House of Hanover (New York, 1961), 103-4.
6
Richard Pares, "American versus Continental Warfare,
1739-63,” English Historical Review, LI (July, 1936), 463.
69
opposition of Newcastle's faction.
Bute's demands eventually
contributed to the resignations of Newcastle and Hardwicke in
- Treasury,
May 1762. 7 Thereafter, Bute, as First Lord of the
led a ministry in which he, George Grenville and Egremont controlled^the key positions.
Bute was then in a position to
bring peace as soon as possible.
But, as developments were
to prove, his terms in trie end alienated even Grenville and
Egremont.
The ministry's choice of a diplomat to carry out the
peace negotiations at Fontainebleau could not have been better
for their purposes.
Their choice, the Duke of Bedford, be­
lieved that the terms of the treaty should show Britain's mod­
eration.
This ''little Englander" had strongly opposed Pitt's
rationale for extending the war.
"Your Lordship," Bedford
had written to Bute on July 9, 1761, "will give me leave to
ask those who are willing to carry on the war another year,
what advantages they can hope to gain to this country by it?
Q
The conquest of Martinique would be useless, he had contended,
and "cost so many lives of our brave countrymen, and such im­
mense sums of money (and which I supposed the sugar planters
wi 1 1 no more desire should be retained by us than they did in
^Cambridge History of the British Empire, I, 494-5.
8
Bedford Correspondence, III, 23.
70
relation to Guadeloupe)."
He had opposed the attack upon
Martinique as an attempt to gain further possessions in order
to insure that Britain would be able to demand the exclusion
of France from the fisheries.
Bedford had maintained on July 9,
1761 that "the endeavouring to drive France out of any naval
power'is fighting against nature, and...must excite all the
naval powers of Europe to enter into a confederacy against
us."^
He could see no advantage, he wrote to Bute, in "carry­
ing on a bloody and expensive war, when the object for which
it was begun ceases, and when there can be no prospect of
ffll
bettering the conditions of peace than what we now have.
These views were to Bute's liking. 12
On November 1, 1761 Bed­
ford became Lord Privy Seal and on September 1, 1762 he re­
ceived plenipotentiary authority to negotiate a peace with
both France and Spain.
Bute and Bedford became the object of hostile criti­
cism for their pacifistic tendencies.
They were the butt of
a satire, presumably written by John Wilkes, which appeared
in the North Briton of November 13, 1762.
It ridiculed their
Q
Ibid., 25. Pares has explained Beckford's desire for
an attack upon Martinique without wanting to retain it after
the war. "He did not propose to keep Martinique; we were to
take it in order to exchange it for Minorca, and so avoid pay­
ing for that* lost island by restoring Cape Breton a second
time." Pares, War and Trade, 185.
•^Bedford Correspondence, III, 26.
u Ibid., 28.
71
attitudes on the making of a peace.
More important for our
concern, it reveals the pressure exerted on Bedford and Bute ,
from the mercantile quarter, as the following shows:
Posterity shall write our panegyrick tho!
faction and mechanics, and low-lived wret­
ches who live by trade decry us--You have
heard of the sugar-islands... these islands
are not worth one farthing... they increase
our sugar trade; that is granted: but sugar
is a promoter of disease and luxury--it
makes many of these citizens rich and as­
sume
airs of consequence....Let us
there­
fore give up all the sugar islands
to the
French. •*-->
The writer claimed that Canada was a "miserable and wretched
country” and that "to use furs for warmth is surely a scanda­
lous invention.’" ^
Wilkes then turned his guns upon the East India Com­
pany.
"They are haughty merchants,” he wrote, "and too rich
already--we will give them all up--saltpetre is the chief in­
gredient of gunpowder, gunpowder is used in war, we hate war,
therefore we
must hate the trade that furnished uswith it;
and that trade is
the East India T r a d e . A l t h o u g h Bute
claimed that the terms of peace were clear, in Wilkes1 words,
"these cockneys will presume
to controvert and examine them--
0, that I must be doomed to watch over the caprices of furriers,
sugar-boilers, cod-merchants, planters, rum-distillers, freighters,
^^Wilkes, North Briton, II, 3.
^ Ibid., 5.
15
lbid., 7.
72
importers and haughty East India d i r e c t o r s A f t e r having
directed Bedford to dispose of the smaller conquests of Sene­
gal, Minorca, Goree and Belleisle at his pleasure, Bute, in
the words of Wilkes, concluded, "Remember, my Lord--Trade the
bane of our nation."^
These passages were highly significant.
This satire
was directed against Bedford and Bute, as members of the lan­
ded gentry, to show that these men were disturbed by and con­
cerned with the criticisms raised by Pitt and the mercantile
interests against the ministry's terms of peace.
These chief
ministers, according to Wilkes--himself a representative of
the middle class--had little regard for the commercial commun­
ity which they considered had already grown too powerful and
opulent. 18
No doubt criticism such as this from the mercan­
tile quarter made Bute and Bedford take defensive positions
against such abuse.^
The ministry gave Bedford strict instructions.
to consider Acadia as part of Canada.
Ibid.
1 7ibid..
20
He was
He was to agree to the
16
1 0
.
18
The wealth of the mercantile interests often rival­
led that of the landed interests. See G. E. Mingay, English
Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century (Toronto, 1963;, 263-6.
■^Egerton went so far as to conclude that "jealousy and
fear of Pitt were the motives prompting the English ministry in
the negotiations.11 H.E. Eger ton, A Short History of British
Colonial Policy (London, 1908), 176.
”
20nBedford's Instructions, September 4, 1762," (P.R.O.,
S.P. 78, no. 253) in L.G.W. Legg (ed.), British Diplomatic
Instructions. 1689-1789, Vol. VII, France, Part IV, 1745«:T789.
Camden Third Series, XLIX (London, 1934), 55.
73
ceding of the two islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon as shel­
ters for the French fishermen as well as for places for drying
and curing fish, "provided the Most Christian King do admit
to a reasonable inspection on Our part in order to ascertain
the due observance of those conditions which are by the con­
sent of France annexed to the cession of St. Pierre and MicheIon."
21
He was also directed to devote close attention to the
equal division down the Mississippi River, "which will fix
the limits between the two Crowns in North America beyond dispute."
22
The object of this boundary, according to Bedford's
instructions, was to define the properties of France and Bri­
tain and thus "remove forever the source of those unhappy dis­
putes which always arise from an equivocal and unsettled fron­
tier, and from which the miseries and calamities of the pre23
sent war have sprung."
In short, Bedford was to give every
consideration to North American issues.
The ministry's instructions did not take into account
the views of the East India Company.
On the contrary, they
directed Bedford to agree to the return of the pre-war posses­
sions "on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel in their pre­
sent state, retaining those which We have conquered from them
21
Ibid.. 56-7.
22
Ibld.. 57.
74
in Bengal, promising at the same time to fix upon some ar­
rangement in the definitive treaty, whereby the French shall
24
be enabled to carry on their trade in the Ganges.1'
These
terms were modifications of those demanded by the Company.
The ministry informed the Company that its demand of the total
removal of the French from Bengal left no room for negotiation
and was therefore inadmissible. 25 Perhaps the ministry did
not want to obstruct the signing of a peace treaty which they
so earnestly desired.
Regardless of this fact, Bedford ul­
timately gained in the definitive terms everything for which
the Company had hoped.
But, in the negotiations for the pre­
liminary terms, neither he nor the ministry were eager to make
full demands upon the French lest the making of the peace
should be delayed.
Bute was anxious to reach an agreement before Parlia­
ment convened.
According to Pares, Bute could only defend a
carefully prepared political position and he needed to know
the exact state of the negotiations in Paris so that in the
King's speech from the throne he could take the lead in the
26
direction of war or peace.
Small wonder that Bute urged
Bedford on October 30, 1762 to come to an agreement with the
24
Ibid., 59.
S. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth Century Politics (Oxford, 1052V, 96.
2 6
Pares, War and Trade, 606.
75
the enemy as soon as possible.
"For should the signature
of the preliminaries be... defer'd at this critical juncture,"
Bute claimed, "the King will be obliged to consider it as a
manifest indication of disinclination to conclude and must
therefore form his speech to Parliament on a plan of continuing the war...." 28 On November 3, 1762, the preliminaries
were signed at Fontainebleau and Bute's fears of a debate
in Parliament over the unsigned peace terms vanished.
Bute had every reason to fear strong opposition in
Parliament for if Bute's most powerful opponent in Parliament,
Newcastle, could regain his old ally Pitt, an effective oppo­
sition to Bute's peace party would exist.
However, Pitt was
not prepared to join once more with Newcastle.
Hence, when
the preliminaries came before the House of Commons, the one29
time Pitt-Newcastle coalition remained divided.
No effec­
tive leader existed in the lower house to lead an attack against
the terms of peace.
On November 27, 1762, Hardwicke explained that the
lack of opposition was due to the tenor of the nation.
"I am
persuaded," he wrote to Newcastle, "that the burden and tedium
or the war, and the desire of peace are so strong in the gener­
ality of the Parliament, and of the nation (abstracted from
^"Bedford's Instructions," 72.
2 8
Ibid., 73.
Guttridge, The Early Career of Lord Rockingham. 30-1.
76
the interested or wild part of the City of London), that
the very name of peace is agreeable to them, and they would
have been content with terms rather lower than all we have
30
been told of these Preliminaries.”
According to Guttridge,
the lack of opposition in the lower house was due, in part,
to the lack of leadership, for Legge, Yorke and Townshend
31
were either ‘'inadequate” or "unreliable.”
In the upper
house, Grafton, a young follower of Pitt, ventured to chal­
lenge the peace, However, the opposition which he mustered
consisted of a group of discontents with no united plan. 32
Thus, when Pitt refused to accept Newcastle's invitation
of December 3, 1762 for a coalition against the peace, the
sole possibility of a strong opposition to the ministry dis­
appeared.
Bute further strengthened his position by winning
Henry Fox to his side.
The value of Fox, a ruthless and am­
bitious politician, lay in his ability to oppose Pitt in the
House of Commons. According to Pares, "Fox was the man for
33
this uncomfortable but not dangerous position.”
Fox, as
the instrument of Bute and the King, was to be successful in
gaining a large majority for the peace in the House of Commons.
•^Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution,
454.
31-Guttridge, The Early Career of Lord Rockingham, 31.
32Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution,
456.
JJPares, War and Trade, 607; for the inclusion of Fox
into the cabinet see Namier, England in the Age of the American
Revolution, 401-17.
77
The King considered Fox the lesser of two evils.
Although he classified Fox as na man void of principles,"
George III needed a strong politician to assist the mini34
stry in the Commons.
Neither Grenville, the leader in the
House of Commons, nor Egremont could be counted on, for their
terras of peace exceeded those of Bute. 35 Pitt and Newcastle
were in opposition.
Thus Fox remained the sole parliamen­
tarian of power capable
support
of leading the House of Commonsin
of the peace as desired by the peace party. This
he
fully realized when he wrote:
His Majesty was in great concern lest a
good
peace in a good House of Commons should
be
lost, and his authority disgraced, for want
of a proper person to support his honest mea­
sures and keep his closet from that force
with which it was so threatened.36
On November 25, 1762, at the opening of Parliament,
the King expressed the following views on war and peace:
I found, on my accession to the throne, these my
kingdoms engaged in a bloody and expensive war.
I resolved to presecute it with the utmost vi­
gour, determined, however, to consent to peace,
upon just and. honorable terms, whenever the
_____________
•
• ■ >_ _ _ _ _ i /
2
— 2
t v . . . - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
34
Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolu­
tion » 408.
35
Ibid., 390-1. Egremontfs views at this time are not
fully known. Presumably, he agreed with Grenville. The lat­
ter believed that Guadeloupe and St. Lucia should be kept to
pay the cost of civil and military government in North America.
The Grenville papers show that he would rather have given up
his office than sign the peace terms before they were accepted
by Parliament, D.M. Clark, The Rise of the British Treasury:
Colonial Administration in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven,
i960), 108-9.
3^Bedford Correspondence, III, 133-4 and E.R. Turner,
and Guadens Megaro, "The King’s Closet in the Eighteenth Cen­
tury," American Historical Review« XLV (July, 1940), 769.
78
events of war should incline the enemy to
the same pacific disposition.37
The expansion of the war, he stated, adversely af­
fected the commerce and increased the heavy burden imposed
upon the nation.
He looked for an "honorable peace."
He
claimed that history could not show greater military glory
gained by any nation in a shorter time and that peace would
bring territorial advantages, foundations for increased trade
and terms sufficient to remove the causes of further conflict.
"The conditions of these are such," he said, "that there is
not only an immense territory added to the Empire of Great
Britain, but a solid foundation laid for the increase of trade
and commerce; and the utmost care has been taken to remove all
occasions of future disputes between my subjects, and those
of France and Spain, and thereby to add security and permanoo
ency to the blessings of peace."JO
On November 29, 1762 the House of Commons received the
preliminary articles of peace which had been signed at Fon­
tainebleau on November 3, 1762 by the plenipotentiaries of
39
Britain, France and Spain.
The terms were not even consid­
ered in committee.^
Rather, Fox is reported to have defended
the peace at considerable length and then moved an address of
37
Journal of the House of Commons, &XIX (1761-4) > 353.
38
Ibid.. 354.
39A translation of the preliminary articles of peace
can be found in Cobbett, Parliamentary History, XV, 1241-51.
40Ibid.. I25S.
79
thanks to the King.
/1
The peace, according to the address,
42
would put to an end l?a long, bloody, and expensive war."
"We are convinced," the address explained, "that Posterity...
will hereafter agree with us in esteeming that Peace to be
ho less honorable than profitable, by which there will be
ceded to Great Britain such an addition of territory, atten43
ded with so great an extension of commerce,”
The interrelated questions of the amount of an "addition of territory"
and of an "extension of commerce” were to be key issues in
the debates.
Pitt, despite ill health, made a determined, yet un­
successful
speech against the preliminary terms.
Unlike other
politicians of prominence, Pitt was perhaps the only one who
considered the terms in the light of their economic and stra­
tegic value.
His speech, therefore, stressed the importance
of colonial acquisitions.
He opposed the articles of the trea­
ty "that obscured all the glories of the war, surrendered the
dearest interests of the nation, and sacrificed the public
44
faith by an abandonment of our allies."
He based his attack
upon the premise that the treaty did not reduce France to a
41
Ibid.
43Journal of the House of Commons. XXIX. (1761-4), 395.
43
Ibid.
^Cobbett, Parliamentary History. XV, 1260.
80
power of secondary importance.
Yet he was not successful in
defeating the preliminaries in the Commons.
In the House of Lords, the Earl of Shelburne moved an
approval of the preliminaries and then defended the government’s
position.
45
-
He claimed that territorial gains were of secon46
dary importance to commercial gains.
An increase of trade
would result in an increase of sailors and, consequently, en­
hance the defensive posture of the nation.
The control of
Canada gave Britain an extended trading community along the
Atlantic Seaboard and increased the security of the American
colonies.
The French concessions of the fisheries would en­
able Britain to maintain an additional 4,000 seamen.
British
control of North America, in short, was advantageous for both
trade and defense.
With respect to the West Indies, Shelburne strongly
opposed any expansion in that region.
He used the prevailing
balance of trade theory--namely that a nation's exports should
equal her imports--to justify the return of Guadeloupe to
France.
Since Britain exported LI,000,000 in goods to Guade­
loupe while importing L 2 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 , an imbalance existed which
47
was very unhealthy for the nation's economy.
Further, the
^A.S. Turberville, The House of Lords in the Eigh­
teenth Century (London, 1927j^ 310.
46
Cambridge History of the British Empire, I, 504-5;
from She1burne MSS., Vo17 CLXV.
47Ibld.. 505.
81
British islands could produce more sugar, the value of which
was doubtful anyway.
Population increased in northern colo­
nies, Shelburne explained, therefore the market for British
exports would increase proportionately.
This would furnish
employment for millions of inhabitants of Great Britain.
Opposition to the preliminary terms in the Lords was
minimal.
Grafton, a youthful supporter of Pitt, replied to
Shelburne.
This reply, his maiden speech in the upper house,
had little success except that his verbal abuse directed
against Bute prompted the "favorite11 to defend his position.
48
Bute reportedly defended the ministry’s position in a grandi­
loquent fashion, but at the same time left himself open to
ridicule by making the statement that he wanted this incription to be written on his tombstone: "Here lies the Earl of
Bute, who, in concert with the King's ministers, made the
.49
Peace."
Hardwicke, Newcastle’s ally, delivered the strongest
50
speech against the preliminaries.
He claimed that certain
territories were given to France for which Britain had not made
an equivalent gain.
Further, he claimed that the Lords were
asked to give general approval to the preliminaries without
48
Ibid.
49Turberville, House of Lords in the Eighteenth Cen­
tury , 311.
"^Cobbett, Parliamentary History, XV, 1251-8.
82
studying the terms in detail.
In retrospect, the opposition
was not substantial: the Lords approved the preliminaries
without a division. 51
Bute had advocated peace above all else.
In so doing,
he alienated Pitt and Newcastle in turn, and even Grenville
and Egremont on the specific terms of peace. 52 Although he
and the King had intended to win the popularity of the nation
by restoring peace, Bute suffered because of his connections
and his terms of peace.
He became the victim of public abuse
and slander based upon such things as his Scottish blood, ru­
mours of illicit relations with the King’s mother, rumours of
a plan to bring in a despotic regime, and his mishandling of the
peace. He increased his unpopularity by pushing the tax on
cider through Parliament in order to raise revenue.
ensued.
Riots
The City unsuccessfully petitioned both houses of
Parliament and the King himself to repeal the tax.
The pres­
sure on Bute became so unbearable that he resigned on April
8
,
1763, a defeated man.
51The House of Lords’address of congratulations to the
King emphasized these important factors of the peace: ’’seeing
the great Object of the war so fully answered, all proper at­
tention shown to your majesty’s Allies, a vast Extent of Em­
pire added to the British Crown, new Sources opened for the
Trade and Manufactures of this nation and stability and Dura­
tion insured...." Great Britain, Journal of the House of Lords,
XXX (1760-4), 308.
52Grenville and Egremont insisted on compensation for
Havanna, and Bute, desperate for peace, transferred Grenville
to the Admiralty and brought in Lord Halifax as a secretary of
state. Egremont acquiesced. Z.E. Rashed, The Peace of Paris,
1763 (Liverpool, 1951), 176-7.
83
If Bute’s resignation signified his defeat, Parlia-;.
ment's acceptance of his terms of peace signified his victory.
These terms failed to satisfy all concerned; but none could.
Some mercantile interests, as the following chapter will demon­
strate, did not look upon the treaty with favor.
The treaty
did not offer the commercial community the extensive opportun­
ities for commercial expansion which it had anticipated and
considered tantamount to the war effort.
VI
THE TREATY OF PARIS
In Paris on February 10, 1763 the plenipotentiaries of
Britain, France and Spain signed a treaty which brought the
Seven Years' War to a conclusion.
The terms of this treaty
were generally advantageous to Britain and protected, in
the main, the interests of the English mercantile community.
In several instances the treaty allowed for the expansion of
British trade, although perhaps not to the extent anticipated
by the mercantile interests.
Although the treaty eliminated
French competition in North America, it did not do so in West
Africa, the West Indies or India; yet in each of these areas,
the British mercantile interests witnessed commercial expan­
sion at the expense of their French rivals.
If Pitt had re­
mained the dominant figure in the cabinet after October 5,
1761, the terms of the peace probably would have been more ad­
vantageous to the mercantile interests, for Pitt had been pre­
pared to expand the war in order to enlarge the empire.
His
successor, Lord Bute, on the otherhand, sought to terminate
the war and conclude a peace in which he was prepared to con­
cede minor territories to France in order to gain a quick set­
tlement.
Thus to those who sought to retain the many territor
ies which a superior military position appeared to justify,
the treaty'was a disappointment.
Yet, no mercantile interest
could complain that the enlarged empire did not offer further
scope for the expansion of trade and commerce.
85
By the fourth article of the treaty, France renounced
all claims to Acadia and ceded Canada, including Cape Breton
and all other islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to Britain.^
This article simply reflected the fact that the war, as empha­
sized in the British declaration of war, had been fought pri2
marily for the control of North America.
By the treaty,
Britain replaced France as the imperial power in control of
the vast hinterland beyond the coastal colonies.
The ’'French
Menace" was thus removed from America.
Even before the signing of the treaty, new imperial
problems, which were portents of a greater struggle between
Britain and the American colonies, were appearing on the hori­
zon.
These were due to the growth both of the American colo3
nies and of the British debt.
Vergennes, the French ambassa­
dor at Constantinople, possessed great insight into Britain's
new problem as a result of France's relinquishment of Canada.
"The consequences of the entire cession of Canada are obvious,"
he wrote.
"I am persuaded England will ere long repent of hav-
ing removed the only check that could keep her colonies in awe.
Thus Britain's fight for the control of the hinterland seeming­
ly did not end with the Treaty of Paris.
^Complete copy of the Treaty of Paris, February 10,
1763, can be found in Journal of the House of Commons, XXIX
(1761-4), 576-94.
2"His Majesty's Declaration of War against the French
King," Shirley Correspondence, II, 450-3.
o
^Gipson, The Coming of the American Revolution, 10-27.
^Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy,
A
86
The location of the boundary between British and
French possessions in America constituted a critical and
long-debated issue in the negotiations.
By the treaty it
was ”fixed irrevocably by a line drawn along the middle of
the river Mississippi.”
France was to retain New Orleans.
But, as Bedford had suspected, the French and Spanish nego­
tiators, Choiseul
and Grimaldi, had secretly negotiated a
transfer of all of France’s domains in the western portion
of Louisiana, including New Orleans, to Spain.^
France evidently had little desire to retain any
possessions in North America.
According to Louis-Jaray,
France wished to retain Guadeloupe and the other valuable
French islands at any price.
The French West Indies were
the alpha and the omega of the French colonial empire and
the source of the personal fortune of Choiseul and a great
number of other prominent figures.
regarded Canada as a liability.
6
The French mercantilists
Further, the suppression of
the Jesuits in France in 1761-2 ended one key motive for the
retention.of the French colonies in North America.
Voltaire,
for one, wished ’’Canada at the bottom of the Arctic Sea to­
gether with the reverend Jesuit fathers."^
Evidently, French
^T.C. Pease (ed.), Anglo-French Boundary Disputes in
the West, 1749-1763 (Springfield, Illinois, 1936), 548 and
Max Savelle, The Diplomatic History of the Canadian Boundary
(New Haven, 1$"40), 144.
^Gabriel Louis-Jaray, L ’Empire Frangais d ’Amerique,
1534-1803 (Paris, 1938), 264-63
5
^Quoted in Dorn, Competition for Empire, 260. For the
reaction of the Jesuits in Louisiana see R.G. Waters (ed.),
The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (73 vols.; Cleve-
land7T90'0y; LXX. 13.----------------
87
colonial policy at the end of the Seven Years' War empha­
sized two dominant themes: the retention of the valuable
French West Indies, particularly Guadeloupe and Martinique,
and the relinquishment of New France to Britain and Spain.
Britain also made substantial gains in the North Ameri­
can fisheries, although the return to the French of their fish­
ing rights off the coast of Newfoundland appeared to some Eng­
lishmen as the total restitution of all that the British had
hoped to gain.
According to the peace terms, the French re­
tained "the liberty of fishing and drying on a part of the
coasts of the island of Newfoundland," as specified in the
Treaty of Utrecht.
In addition, French fishermen were restric­
ted to fishing at a distance of three leagues (approximately
nine miles) from the British coasts in the Gulf of St. Law­
rence and fifteen leagues (approximately 45 miles) from Cape
g
Breton Island and Nova Scotia.
According to the military
governor of Canada, James Murray, the territorial control of
9
these coasts gave Britain distinct commercial advantages.
Britain made important gains along the Canadian coast in the
Sjohn Wilkes attacked these terms with wit and some
geographic insight. He claimed, after the acceptance of the pre­
liminaries, that the creation of these boundaries "...will turn
out to be a grant of the whole fishery, unless our wise mini­
stry will contrive to erect sea-marks, to be visible through
the eternal fogs of those seas, and to have them guarded by
the whole fleet of England." North Briton, III, 43.
^"...the Fish caught upon these coasts and in the bays,
far exceed the bank Cod and fetch an advanced price in foreign
markets: the fishermen being on the spot will commence fishing
the very instant the season permits and will continue to the
very last of it whereby at least two Months will be gained in
the trade, which are just now a heavy expence to it, without
producing the least profit to it." From Report of the State
of the Government of Quebec in Canada, June 5th, 1762," in
Adam Shortt and A.G. Doughty;(eds.), Documents Relating to the
Constitutional History or Canada (z vois.; Ottawa* ivio), I, //•
88
salmon and whale fisheries not to mention the cod fisheries.^
A further term of the treaty ceded to France the. islands of
St. Pierre and Miquelon as shelters for the French fishermen.
No fortifications or military forces were to exist on those
islands.
Finally, Spain renounced her claims to a share of
the ^fisheries .^
The Treaty of Paris gave full recognition to Britain’s
dominant position in the fisheries of North America.
Yet, in
the debates upon the preliminary treaty, Pitt violently op posed those terms pertaining to the fisheries. 12
French re­
tention of the two islands off Newfoundland, he claimed, would
endanger British security and possibly enable France to re13
gain her maritime power.
Pitt still took the hard line:
he demanded the exclusive control of the fisheries.
Britain and France continued to discuss the thir­
teenth article of the Treaty of Utrecht long after the sign­
ing of the Treaty of Paris. The article failed to make exact
geographic definitions:
10
Ibid.
•'••'•Spain renewed these claims during the War of the
American Revolution. See Brown, ’’Spanish Claims to a Share
in the Newfoundland Fisheries,” 80-2.
1?
Cobbett, Parliamentary History, XV, 1263.
l-'The view of Innis supports Pitt's claims that France
would rebuild her naval power from her Newfoundland fisheries.
According to Innis, ’’The whole increase of the naval greatness
of France had its foundation from its trade.” H. A. Innis, The
Cod Fisheries: the History of an International Economy (New
Haven” 1940), ll9.
89
...it shall be allowed to the subjects
of France to catch fish and to dry them
on land in that part only and in no
other besides that, of the said island
of Newfoundland which stretches from
the place called Cape Bonavista to the
northern point of the said island and
from thence running down by the western
side reaches as far as the place called
Point Riche.14
On March 1, 1763 Egremont wrote to Bedford and reported that
the Duke of Nivernois, the French ambassador in London, claimed
for France an exclusive right as given in the Treaty of Utrecht to the total control of the north-eastern coast of New­
foundland from Point Riche to Cape Bonavista.
After Bedford
questioned Choiseul in Paris on this point, the French retreat­
ed to a diplomatic position of not demanding an exclusive
right to fishing and curing on that coast.15 The Treaty of :
Versailles (1783) increased the complications of thedivision
of the fisheries. The conflicting claims remained unsettled
throughout the nineteenth century.
In fact, they were not
resolved until the Entente Cordiale of 1904.
By the eleventh article of the Treaty of Paris only
those territories in India which were in France's possession
at the beginning of 1749 were restored to France.
That nation,
in effect, renounced the many acquisitions made since that
14
Ibid.. 138.
"Egremont to Bedford, 1 March, 1763 and 21 March,
1763" (P.R.O. ,SIP.,7„8, no. 256), Legg, British Diplomatic In­
structions , 79-82.
90
time.
Britain thus became the uncontested European power
in Bengal since France was forbidden to maintain garrisons
or keep troops in the territories of the Subah of Bengal.
Finally, both powers recognized Mahomet Ally Kahn as Nabob
of the Carnatic and Salabat Jing as lawful Subah of the
Deccan.
The definitive terms were, according to Clive as
reported in his Letter to the Propietors of East India Stock
(London, 1764), nvery advantageous to the East India Com16
pany."
Yet they fell short of the Company's demands for
the total exclusion of France from Bengal.
The Company
wanted the year 1744 to be used as the basis for the restora­
tion; this would have signified the total exclusion of France
from the region.
But the definitive treaty established "the
beginning of the year 1749" as the restoration date.
Thus,
the most significant conquests of Dupleix and of the French
East India Company were nullified.
These terms, while ap­
pearing satisfactory to the British nation as a whole, did
not wear well with certain elements within the English East
India Company.
The terms of the preliminaries had caused
dissentions among the leading figures of the Company.
Thus
began the contention for control of the Company between the
forces of Robert Clive and Lawrence Sulivan, the leader of
the Company at that time.
1
c.
Sutherland, "The East India Company and the Peace
of Paris," English Historical Review. LXII (April, 1947), 180.
91
Sulivan had the ear of the ministry during the nego­
tiations for the definitive terms.
This was not extraordin­
ary, for the Company maintained close connections with His
Majesty's government throughout most of the eighteenth cen­
tury.
It maintained intimate contact with the Pelham con­
nection but the resignations of Pitt and Newcastle during the
last years of the war brought this to an end.
However, Suli­
van found a new ministerial contact in the young Lord Shel­
burne.
The latter, a close associate of Bute and Henry Fox,
proved to be a valuable asset to the Company, particularly
to those followers of Sulivan who supported the ministry's
17
position in the peace making activities.
This, in part,
explains both the position of Clive and his followers who
opposed the preliminary terms and that of the Sulivan faction
who were allied with the ministry.
Britain relinquished many of her Caribbean conquests:
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cuba and two islands of less conse­
quence, namely Desirade and Maria Galante.
She did, however,
gain control of Grenada and the Grenadines as well as three
of the four disputed Neutral Islands: St. Vincent, Dominica
and Tobago.
At the same time St. Lucia, which Lord Hardwicke
regarded as the most valuable of the Neutral Islands, came
under French jurisdiction--much to the disappointment of the
■^Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth
Century Politics, 90-1.
92
City.
This concession is indicative of the desires of the
British ministry, for the common Council of the City, jubi­
lant at the further victories, had sent congratulations to
the King regarding the conquests of St. Lucia and Martinique.
These victories, they claimed, were assurances of "his ma­
jesty's desire to promote their commercial interests.
Yet, according to Bute, the cession of St. Lucia was made
"chiefly to render the Peace stable and permanent: to remove
everything likely to produce animosities hereafter.
Pitt's attack on the treaty centered primarily on
the West Indian settlement.
He opposed the relinquishment
of Cuba, Guadeloupe, Martinique and St. Lucia, and claimed
that the ministry seemed "to have lost sight of the great
fundamental principle, that France is chiefly, if not solely,
to be dreaded by us in the light of a maritime and commercial
power." 20
He contended that the restoration of those islands
and the concessions granted in the North American fisheries
would increase France's commercial activity.
This, in turn,
would permit the recovery of France and the return of her
challenge to Britain's naval power.
He incorrectly maintained
that after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle France had gained
1®R.R. Sharpe, London and the Kingdom (3 vols.; Lon­
don, 1895), III, 72.
■^"Lord Bute to the Duke of Bedford, September 28,
1762." Romeny Sedgwick (ed.), Letters from George III to Lord
Bute, 1756-66 (London, 1939), 138.
^Cobbett, Parliamentary History, XV, 1265.
93
commercial superiority over Britain and by her trade in the
Caribbean "supplied almost all Europe with the rich commodities which are produced only in that part of the world.' 91
"By this commerce," he argued, "she enriched her merchants,
and augmented her finances."
22
He urged that since Britain's
conquests in North America were of "little detriment to the
commerce of France," and that since the state of the trade
with North America was low and the prospects for growth
poor, the control of even one of the major French islands
would be lucrative for English traders and thus enhance Bri23
tain's naval power.
Pitt, more than any other politician of the period,
understood the importance of trade routes.
If Britain made
gains in the Caribbean, he claimed, the trade of the "middle
passage" would grow, as would that between the islands and
the North American colonies.
Britain.
All the trade would center on
If Britain relinquished the islands, Pitt warned,
all these trading benefits would go to the enemy.
Dominica, prior to the war a so-called "Neutral Is­
land," was the most important British acquisition in the
21
Ibld.
22
Ibid.
2
Pitt's position is open to question. Professor
Pares objected greatly to this point and claimed "...it
was factious to run down North America and exalt the value
of Martinique and Guadeloupe by comparison because Pitt
was the man who had always insisted that the security of
North America was the first object of the war, and the
conquest of the West Indies a thing of second-rate impor­
tance." Pares, War and Trade, 610 n2.
94
Caribbean.
The value of this island lay in its desirable
military and commercial possibilities rather than its Agri­
cultural importance.
The Privy Council emphasized the stra­
tegic position of this island situated between Guadeloupe
2 A
and Martinique.
But the island also had potential as a
trading center.
When Guadeloupe was still under British
control, the governor of the island, Dalrymple, wrote to
Bute suggesting the establishment of a free port at Dominica.
"All these articles for Trade bought at the Cheapest & first
hand or produced by our own industry,” Dalrymple claimed,
"put on shore at Dominica, within a few hours sail of two
powerful Colonies in want of everything cannot fail to At25
tract Trade.”
A free port was necessary since the smug­
glers were prohibited from meeting in the Neutral Islands.
Dalrymple claimed that this free trade would be advantageous
to the slave traders, particularly since Goree was to be re­
turned to the French.
A free port would also be advanta­
geous to the spice traders of the East India Company, to the
exporters of wool, to the provisioners of sail cloth and
naval stores, to the venders of fish and the like.
2
Yet how
could such a plan based on free trade be implemented in an
24
Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, IV, 588.
2S
Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell Dalrymple to Lord Bute
from Guadeloupe, February 27, 1763,” John Fortescue (ed.),
The Correspondence of King George the Third (6 vols.; London,
1927), I, 49.
^Ibid.
95
empire based upon mercantilist theories?
Dalrymple's plan
was a sincere attempt to redress those grievances between
the French and British traders in the Neutral Islands that
were specified in the British declaration of war.
In Africa, Britain made substantial gains at the ex­
pense of her European rival.
She gained Senegal and thus
retained the valuable gum trade, but returned the island of
Goree to France.
The relinquishment of Gorie, understandably, did
not pass without criticism.
Pitt maintained, in his opposi­
tion to the preliminaries, that the ministry surrendered Gor£e
27
"without the least apparent necessity."
He claimed that in
the 1761 negotiations with the French both parties recognized
the retention of Gor£e as essential to the security of Sene28
gal.
Pitt failed to mention that Choiseul was prepared to
cede both Gor£e and Senegal provided England grant to France
29
some other depot located on the African coast.
Edmund Burke,
also concerned with the security of British trade on that
coast, reported in the Annual Register (1762) that by the
terms of the treaty the English "seem to be the most advanta-
t
i
geously situated for the trade in time of peace; and the French
for carrying away the whole of it in time of war." 30 But if
^Cobbett, Parliamentary History, XV, 1266.
®Ibid.
OQ
^Savelle, Diplomatic History of the Canadian Boundary, 1 2 2 .
■^/Annual Regis ter .(1762;) , ‘61,.
2
96
the island of Goree had greater strategic value, the Bri­
tish acquisition of Senegal with "all the rights and depen­
dencies of the river Senegal" had even greater commercial
advantages.
The British ministry took steps to place the con­
quered area of Senegal under permanent imperial control.
A
wealthy merchant,, Samuel Touchet, however, sought to secure
a monopoly of the region in order to control the gum and
slave trades.
Since he was a leading textile producer, the
control of the gum trade would have given him a steady supply
of Senegal gum, indispensable in the printing of linen and
cotton.
Touchet based his claim upon valuable support ren­
dered to the expedition of Thomas Cumming, the merchant whom
Pitt had urged in 1756 to attack the French settlements on
the West African coast in return for an "exclusive charter.
QI
By supporting Cumming, Touchet gained the right to claim half
the charter.
Despite opposition from other merchants, he made
repeated demands which were disallowed upon recommendation of
the Crown's legal advisers.^ John Wilkes publicly rebuked
Touchet for his claims. 33 Egremont, in a letter to the Board
of Trade, reported that the ministry had decided to grant the
31Chatham Correspondence, I, 221-2.
32"The Merchants of Whitehaven to Charles Jenkinson:
Add. MSS. 38200, f. 161," in Jenkinson Papers, 107.
^ North Briton, III, 130.
-^Annual
-;i.ster
97
governmental control of the region to the African Company.
The Board of Trade concurred and placed the total territor­
ial and commercial administration of the area in the hands
of the Company. 35 Thus despite Touchet's close connection
with the ministry, his claims were denied, and the African
Company added Senegal to its commercial jurisdiction.
The remaining terms of the treaty were of less im­
portance.
Britain.
Belleisle was returned to France and Minorca to
The French agreed to evacuate those territories
belonging to the rulers of Hanover, Hesse, Brunswick, and
Buckebourg which had been occupied during the war.
They
also agreed to recognize Britain's right to cut logwood on
the Honduras coast and to build only "houses and magazines
necessary for them, for their families, and for their effects."
Britain's biggest gain at Spain's expense was the acquisition
of Florida, traded in the negotiations for Cuba, "as well as
all that Spain possesses on the continent of North America,
to the East and to the South East of the river Mississippi."
The signatory powers recognized Portugal as a contracting par­
ty.
Finally, if any of Portugal's colonies in America, Africa
or in the East Indies were in French or Spanish hands, they
were to be returned to Portugal.
O/
Shortt and Doughty, Documents Relating to the Con­
stitutional History of Canada, I, 130.
35Ibid.. 139.
98
How did the mercantile interests represented in
Parliament react to these terms of peace?
This can be de­
termined by analyzing the second and third divisions in
the House of Commons on December 9 and 10, 1762 respective36
ly.
On December 9, 319 members voted for and 67 members
voted against the preliminary terms of the treaty.
This
indicated an overwhelming support for the treaty and for
the ministry.
On December 10, the third division was, per­
haps, less critical for the acceptance of the preliminaries
by the Commons; 227 voted for and 63 against.
Of the oppo­
nents of the peace,nineteen of the fifty Members of Parlia­
ment with mercantile interests opposed the preliminaries.
Most but not all of these appear to have voted against the
peace for reasons of personal interest or complaint.
Sir William Baker, the Governor of the Hudson's Bay
Company, voted against the peace.
His reasons for doing so
probably stemmed from his dissatisfaction at the loss of
the privileged position of his company in the British fur
markets in the face of the new competition furnished by the
English traders from Quebec.
Further, as a director of the
East India Company, he could have been allied with Clive's
faction who voted against the peace.
Thus his close political
A
Several lists remain of these opposing the prelimin1
ary terms on December 9 and 10, 1762. No two are similar..
This historian used the list given in Cobbett, Parliamentary
History, XV, 1272-4.
3
99
connection with Newcastle in early 1761, according to the
evidence unearthed by Namier, does not account fully for
37
Baker's oppositionto the preliminaries of peace.
Robert Clive and his allies in the East India Com­
pany, namely H. C.
against the peace.
Boulton and John Walsh, also voted
Clive, indignantat the ministry's nego­
tiations which failed to press for the full demands of the
Company, rejected the advances of Fox to join with the government and gave his support to the opposition. 38 Further,
Clive joined the growing opposition to Sulivan within the
Company.
Sulivan, as an ally of Fox and Shelburne, favored
the preliminary terms of peace. 39 Two other merchants with
East Indian connections opposed the peace: Thomas Walpole,
an ally of Pitt active in governmental contracts, and Wil­
liam Willy, a London cloth merchant.
Only four of fifteen M. P.'s with West Indian inter­
ests voted against the peace.
William Beckford, the wealthy
West Indian nabob and Lord Mayor of the City, probably voted
against the peace because of his strong alliance with the
commercial community of London, for as an absentee sugar plan
ter he could have little reason to be dissatisfied with the
37Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolu­
tion, 318-19 from Ada. MSS. 33030, ff. 1-2.
38Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession
of George III, II, 335.
^Sutherland,
The East India Company in Eighteenth
Century Politics. 99-100.
100
return of Guadeloupe and Martinique to France.
In addition
to Beckford, three "West Indians1' voted against the peace:
W. Woodley, Sir W. Codrington and J. Thomlinson.
only Beckford and Woodley could be counted as
Of these,
members of
the powerful planter class; Codrington and Thomlinson would
be included in the "outer-ring" of less influential "West
Indians."
Thus it is clear that the majority of the West
Indian planters favored a peace which returned the valuable
French sugar islands and thus insured the position of the
British West Indian sugar producers in the home markets.
Further, with Guadeloupe, Martinique and the other French
islands in French hands, the slave trade would return to
its pre-war normalcy.
The treaty was agreeable and bene­
ficial to the West Indian planters
in particular.
The treaty was unsatisfactory to the following mer­
chants.
Bartholemew Burton, a prominent dealer in government
stock, voted against the p e a c e . T h i s man, the Governor of
the Bank of England, although owing his political success
to Newcastle, probably opposed the terms of peace because of
his strong commercial associations in the City.
John Cal­
vert, a brewer with no colonial connections, likewise opposed
the terms of peace.
His brother, Nicholas Calvert, also with
interests in brewing and an eccentric with a record of continual
^Namier and Brooke, House of Commons, II, 164.
101
opposition, voted against the peace terms.^
Another mem­
ber in opposition, Bruce Fisher, a wealthy cloth merchant
who held government contracts for army clothing, voted
/o
against the preliminaries.
Two of his closest associates
with commercial interests in the City, Sir William Baker,
already mentioned, and John Wilkes, who vehemently attacked
the ministry and its peace in his North Briton, voted with
Fisher in opposition.
The three Fonnereaus in Parliament voted with an
eye for commercial gain.
The two Fonnereau; brothers pos­
sessed a victualing contract to supply the Gibraltar garri­
son and were extensive subscribers to the government loans
underwriting the war.^
One of them, Zachary, voted with
the opposition against the peace on December 1, 1762, but
after making an arrangement with Bute to gain further gov­
ernment contracts, he sided with the administration.
His
brother Thomas and his nephew Phillip both voted against the
preliminaries but quickly allied themselves to the ministry
44
following Zachary's example.
41Ibid.. 177.
42Ibid.. 426-8.
42Z. P. Fonnereau, as well as two other opponents to
the peace in Parliament, Wm. Beckford and F. Honywood, under­
wrote large sums for the great government loan of December,
1759. From Add. MSS. 32901, f. 238 in Namier, Structure of
Politics at the Accession of George III, I, 69.
44
Ibid., 447-9.
102
Three other merchants opposed the preliminary arti­
cles of peace.
Francis Honywood, who made money from govern­
ment loans, voted against the peace. ^
Another in opposition
was Sir Richard Ladbroke, a London brewer, banker, City M. P.
and alderman.
Joseph Mawbey, a vinegar distiller, also voted
against the preliminaries.
None of these merchants had poli­
tical connections of any apparent importance.
From the above facts the following generalizations
are pertinent.
First, it is apparent that the ,?East Indians'5
formed the largest opposition of any vested interest to the
treaty;
four M. P.'s with direct and two with indirect in­
terest in the East India Company opposed the preliminaries.
Their opposition could have been due to their alliance with
their leader, Clive, or, less likely, to their associations
with Pitt and Newcastle.
Certainly the preliminary terms
46
were not equal to the Company's demands.
Secondly, the
City interests voted against the preliminaries.
Beckford,
Baker, Ladbroke and Burton all with large financial interests
opposed the terms.
Moreover, some government contractors
voted against the peace.
In this category Thomas Fonnereau,
Bruce Fisher and Francis Honywood,- who made much of their
money from the profits of war, probably opposed the peace
45
Ibid., 535.
46
The preliminary and definitive terms relative to
a settlement in the eastern hemisphere were quite different.
Possibly, the definitive terms were more to the liking of
this group. They certainly were to Clive.
103
because of the imminent loss of valuable and lucrative
contracts. ^
Finally, apparently no parliamentary repre­
sentatives of the slave traders or merchants active in the
fisheries objected to the terms.
The moderate gains made
by the British on the slave trading coast of Africa and in
the fishing region adjacent to the Canadian shore no doubt
satisfied these interests.
Thus on the whole, the terms of
the treaty, while obtaining the original objects for which
the war had been fought, satisfied the expectations of the
majority of the British nation except those, as Pares has
said, nwho lived by war or war -monger ing.1148
On June 8, 1763 the Board of Trade reported to the
ministry on the commercial potential of the newly acquired
territories gained by the Treaty of Paris. 49 Its formal
report was a defense of the peace treaty and a projection
of Britain's empire.
It recommended what the Board consid­
ered to be the necessary regulations in order to insure the
47
Government contracts were exceedingly profitable in
comparison to bidding. See "Report from the Committee Appoin­
ted upon the 4th Day of March 1763 to take into Consideration
the Several Estimates and Accounts, etc. relating to the Ex­
penditure thereof, since the Commencement of the late War...,"
British Sessional Papers, Reports, 1731-1800, (New York:
Readex Microprint, I960), Vol. I, no. 8, 3-27.
^Pares, War and Trade, 610.
^9"Lords of Trade to Egremont, with Report, June 8 ,
1763," Shortt and Doughty, Documents Relating to the Consti­
tutional History of Canada, I, 131-47.
104
gaining of commercial advantages from the new territories.
At the same time the Board formulated the basis of the Pro­
clamation of
1 7 6 3
.
The Report defined the government's
commercial policy in the new areas.
The Board of Trade reported that the
fisheriescon­
stituted the first of the "most obvious Advantages arrising
from the Cessions made by the Definitive T r e a t y . " T h e
Fishery of the River St. Lawrence consisting of Whales,
Seals, Sea-Cows &ca has been in the short Period since the
taking of Quebec," the Report went on, "carried to a much
greater Extent by your Majesty’s Subjects, than it ever
was by the French, during their Possession of Canada." 52 Fur­
ther, the British control of the coastlines from Labrador
to Nova Scotia, exclusive of the Newfoundland shores, was de­
finitely advantageous.
The Board was not, however, appre­
hensive about the French control of St. Pierre and Miquelon;
these islands, according to the Report, could not sustain
a large population and lacked wood "either for Firing or for
tro
any sort of Naval Construction."
In addition, the Board
believed that the Newfoundland coastline would serve as a bet­
ter drying ground for the French fishermen.
Nevertheless,
^Shelburne was the ministry’s chief ally on the Board
of Trade. His views were predominant in the Report and the
Proclamation of 1763. R. A. Humphreys, "Lord Shelburne and the
Proclamation of 1763," English Historical Review, XLIX (April,
1934), 241-64.
5luLords of Trade to Egremont,” 133.
52Ibid., 134.
53
Ibid.
105
the Report cautioned against the possibility of a contra­
band trade to the islands and recommended that the Governor
of Newfoundland should be directed to inforce strictly the
Acts of Trade.
The Board of Trade also outlined the potential com­
mercial advantages stemming from the possession of Canada.
The valuable fur trade of the hinterland was the first and
foremost commercial advantage.
The Board’s Report recog­
nized the important market of the North American Indians,
which the British exporters would be able to supply, and
predicted that the expansion of the British empire in North
America would make possible the settlement of the whole area
’’from the Mouth of the Mississippi to the Boundaries of the
Hudson's Bay Settlements.
Before the cession of Canada,
the control of land by "land jobbers,” the Report contended,
had made the price of land in the American colonies so high
that the colonists ”were either forced into Manufactures,
being excluded from planting by the High Price of Land (A
Situation which they otherwise would have preferr’d) or
55
forced to emigrate to the other side of the mountains....”
They also underscored the great advantage which Britain would
56
secure from the increased supply of wood.
The Royal Navy
54Ibid.. 137.
55Ibld.
A great timber shortage existed after the Seven
Years’ War; see R. G. Albion, Forests and Sea Power* The
Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652-1862 (Cambridge, Mass.,
1926), 133-6.
106
needed more wood for masts and construction materials and
the sugar islands needed more lumber for building supplies.
In addition, the supplying of masts and stores for the Royal
Navy ”had been almost entirely stop’d by bad Management and
Waste committed in Your Majesty’s woods.”57 Thus the Board
of Trade regarded Canada not merely as market for British
exports but as an area of supply and settlement.
The Board of Trade, justifying the exchange of Cuba
for Florida in the negotiations, claimed that Florida would
furnish all the commercial advantages given by a settlement
area.
The Board maintained that indigo, silk and cotton
could be grown in this area which they claimed was similar
in climate to the West Indies.
The raising of these needed
commodities would prove a strong temptation for the settle­
ment and development of Florida.
The new British islands of the Caribbean, according
to the Board of Trade’s Report, should be settled and culti­
vated.
"It is a known Truth, that the Produce of our West
India Islands,” the Report stated, "has hitherto been rarely
sufficient to answer our growing Consumption in these valuable
articles.”58 The Board recommended the immediate settlement
of the new islands in order to encourage the production of
such important products as sugar, coffee and cotton.
~^”Lords of Trade to Egremont," 138.
58
Ibid.
107
The last advantages gained by the Treaty of Paris
were the securing of the Senegal gum trade as well as the
gaining of a larger share in the slave trade on the African
coast.
In addition, the Board argued that the exploration
of the Senegal River might yield further articles of trade
advantageous to Britain's commerce.
In these places "where planting and Settlement, as
well as Trade and Commerce are the immediate Objects," the
Board recommended the establishing of governmental systems.
"Canada, Florida and the new acquired Islands in the West
Indies, " the Board of Trade reported, "appear to Us to be
the Places where planting, perpetual Settlement and Culti­
vation ought to be encouraged and consequently where regular
Forms of Government must immediately be established." 59 The
new acquisitions thus came under the regulations of the mer­
cantile system and the governmental control of Britain. The
African settlements, however, were to be administered, as
were the other British trading areas in that region, by the
African Company's committee.
The Board, significantly, did
not concern itself with the domains of the East India or
Hudson's Bay companies.
Like the African Company, the older
companies remained lords and masters of the territories of
their trade.
These were areas which the Board considered to
be unavailable for settlement and planting.
-^Ibid., 140.
In Canada,
108
Florida and the newly acquired islands in the Caribbean,
governments were to be established.
The Report was the Board's justification, according
to the Annual Register (1763), of the ministry's preference
for these acquisitions above those of the West Indian islands
which had been under British control during the war and were
60
returned to France by the treaty.
The Board, in this re­
port, stressed the commercial and agricultural importance
of the new areas of conquest, particularly those in North
America.
The Treaty of Paris increased Britain's empire and
hence gave to the mercantile interests further opportunities
for commercial expansion.
The representatives of the commer­
cial community in Parliament, on the whole, found the defini­
tive terms of this treaty acceptable to their commercial in­
terests and to their political allegiances.
Those merchants
who opposed the peace did so for a variety of reasons. Clive's
faction objected to terms unsatisfactory to the East India
Company.
The City interests, no longer in alliance with Pitt,
were disconcerted with a peace which did not appear consonant
with their commercial expectations and the extent of the war
effort.
Another group in opposition, the war profiteers,
voted against the preliminaries; a treaty, for them, would end
the expansive war-time economy of lucrative government contracts
^ Annual Register (1763), 19.
109
and extensive loans.
The terms of the Treaty of Paris, the
Board of Trade concluded, gave to Britain possessions with
potential for extensive commercial development as well as
desirable territories for settlement.
VII
CONCLUSION
Most of the mercantile interests profited from a
treaty which recognized the expansion of their commercial
interests.
In all the areas of empire--the West Indies,
Africa, India and North America-territorial gains were
made at the expense of France, Britain's chief trading ri­
val.
Thus, a war fought for commercial expansion ended
with a treaty which, although allowing too many restitu­
tions to suit some groups in the commercial community, sa­
tisfied most trading interests.
The West Indian planters made the most extensive
gains as a result of the Treaty of Paris.
Faced with com­
petition from finer French sugars, faced with paying higher
prices for slaves, faced with maintaining their positions
as creditors to their colonial partners despite the cash
shortage in the islands, and faced with criticism from the
less-secure British West Indies (such as Antigua) which de­
sired the continued control of the conquered French sugar
islands, the West Indian nabobs as a powerful vested interest
in the House of Commons were responsible for the return of
the conquered sugar islands to their original owners.
Whitehall was well aware of the power of the West
Indian interests.
For this reason the Board of Trade's Re­
port emphasized the value of Florida.
The Board believed that
Ill
Florida could produce the same types of commodities grown
in the West Indies which were in short supply.
Further,
the reports describing the value of the Caribbean islands
obtained by Britain in the treaty pointed to a concern with
the size of the islands, the hostility of the natives, the
suitability for settlement and the economic value of the
conquests.^
Plans for the colonization and cultivation of
the new territories of Tobago, Grenada and the Grenadines,
St. Vincent and Dominica aimed at developing the commercial
value of these islands.
Thus a ministry.which had given
back the lucrative French sugar islands because of the power
of the West Indian interests sought to increase the value
of these comparatively inconsequential islands totalling
only some 700 square miles.
2
Moreover, the Proclamation of
1763 insured the economic development of the Provinces of
Grenada, East Florida and West Florida.
The West Indian interests, then, held the day even
though sugar in Britain proved to be more expensive as a re­
sult of the reduction in the areas of supply.
By effecting
the return of the well-populated and rich sugar islands of
Guadeloupe and Martinique to France, the West Indian interests
were also indirectly responsible for reducing the markets
^Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, IV, 580609.
2
Pitman claims that by the treaty, Britain acquired
only 448,000 acres of land too mountainous for sugar cultiva­
tion. Pitman, The Development of the British West Indies, 335.
112
legally available to the American traders.
Thus, while
the American colonies waxed strong, the West Indian market
area for the colonial merchant remained virtually unchanged.
Consequently, the illicit trade between the American colo­
nies and the French West Indies returned to plague the imperial authorities. 3 Hence within the protective fence of
mercantilism, a vested interest possessed sufficient strength
to oppose the further extension of a monopoly fostered by
the mercantile system.
The fur traders benefited by the inclusion of Canada
4
within the imperial framework.
After 1759 traders from the
St. Lawrence Valley joined those from New York and Hudson's
Bay
who
were
serving
the
British
market, Although
the Hudson’s Bay Company lost its position of prominence, and
did not fully regain it until 1821 when that company merged
with the successor of the English traders from Quebec called
the North West Company, the Company did make gains at the
peace.
After 1763 it was not restricted to trading in the
area defined as the watershed of the rivers draining into
Hudson's Bay granted in its original charter.
The Proclama­
tion of 1763 aided the Company by permitting any licensed
trader free access to the vast Indian lands: namely,
^Ibid.. 332. Following the peace, the governors of
Martinique and Guadeloupe welcomed the traders from the Ameri
can colonies; this gave the Board of Trade much concern.
Journal of the Board of Trade, LXX (1763), 426.
^Supra. p . 47-9.
113
...all the Lands and Territories not
included within the Limits of Our
said Three new Governments, or within
the Limits of the Territory granted
to the Hudson's Bay Company, as also
all the Lands and Territories lying
to the Westward of the Sources of the
Rivers which fall into the Sea from
the West and North West....5
Previously these lands had been controlled only by the
French fur traders.
Thereafter interlopers were not. per­
mitted in the Company's domains, whilst the Company gained
access to the new areas.
But whether the Company or the
"Pedlars from Quebec" benefited most, the British fur trade
entered into the years of its greatest growth, made possible
by the total control of the valuable fur-bearing lands in
North America.
The direct control of the fisheries, made necessary
by the extension of the fishing grounds, now passed to a
colonial government.
By the Proclamation of 1763, the coast
from Hudson's Straits to the Island of St. John's and all
islands off the coast came under the jurisdiction of the
Governor of Newfoundland.
Supervisory authority remained
in the hands of the Board of Trade.
Thus, with the
^Brigham (ed.), British Royal Proclamations, 216.
Two examples show the continuing power of the Board
of Trade. On November 18, 1763 the Board of Trade granted to
Richard Gridley and son the fishing rights of the Magdeline
Islands which had been held previously by a Frenchman. Jour­
nal of the Board of Trade, LXX (1763), 345ff. Secondly, the
^merchants and traders to Newfoundland" from the ports of
western England, still active as a vested interest, made
claims unacceptable to the Board for recompense for damages
suffered during the war at the hands of the French. Ibid., 358.
114
termination of the war, the fisheries returned to the peace­
ful state so salutary to the merchants of the ports of wes­
tern England.
The mercantile interests active in the woolen indus­
tries welcomed the extension of the empire in the North Ameri­
can regions.^
Traders and fishermen of these northern regions,
not to mention the French Canadians dependent upon British
supplies, required woolens for warmth.
This benefited the
landed interests responsible for the wool production as well
as the rest of the woolen industry from the processors to the
o
retailers.°
Recent studies relating war and the economy concur
that Britain's economy grew with war effort.^
However, since
the Treaty of Paris reduced Britain's spoils of war, the dis­
gruntled mercantile community, faced with problems of credit,
must have asked what commercial value existed in war. Certainly
Reid, "Pitt's Decision to Keep Canada," 27; Hotblack,
"Peace of Paris," 265 and Alvord, Mississippi Valley in Bri­
tish Politics, I, 50.
^Wool production in the West Riding of Yorkshire more
than doubled in the four years following the Treaty of Paris.
From Table XI, Production of Broadcloths in the West Riding
of Yorkshire, 1727-1800 in T. S. Ashton, An Economic History
of England: the 18th Century (New York, 1955), 249.
^A. H. John, "War and the English Economy, 1700-1763,"
Economic History Review, 2nd ser., VII (April, 1955), 329-44
and Charles Wilson, England's Apprenticeship, 1603-1763 (New
York, 1965), 263-87. One other historian claims that the
wars advanced the economy although deflecting the true growth
of Britain. T. S. Ashton, Economic Fluctuation in England,
1700-1800 (Oxford, 1959), 43‘^ST:
115
the command of the sea constituted the great victory of
the war for the commercial community.
Wilson, for one,
concluded that the development of the British economy ''was
based, historically, on the conscious and successful appli­
cation of s t r e n g t h . T h u s Britain's economy in the eigh­
teenth century advanced with the wars.
However, it must also be underscored that the sky­
rocketing war debt gave political ammunition to the peace
party in Parliament.
The war, costing some £82 millions,
added £60 millions to the national debt.
Whereas in 1757
the national debt had totalled £77.8 millions, by 1763 it
had leaped to £132.1 millions.^
Little wonder that the
King described the war as "expensive" in his speech at the
opening of the parliamentary session which accepted the pre­
liminary terms of peace.
George III claimed that the war
intensified Britain's difficulties "by adding to the heavy
burdens under which this country already laboured.
,,12
Peace
to the landed interests meant the end of a costly war.
As
Hall claimed, administrative costs would soar if a great
number of conquests were retained by the treaty and the peace
party, fearful of increasing the costs of an already expensive
^Wilson, England's Apprenticeship, 287.
■^These figures were taken from ibid., 313-4.
^ Journal of the House of Commons, XXIX (1761-4), 353.
116
empire, abandoned many conquests.
Seeking to win the
popularity of the bulk of the nation by terminating a cost­
ly war, the peace party made a peace agreeable to the landed
interests.
Lord Shelburne, the leader of the peace party who
was responsible for the ministry's implementation and de­
fense of the Treaty of Paris in the Proclamation of 1763, came
under the influence of Josiah Tucker, the most notable of the
predecessors of Adam Smith.
Tucker attacked the expense of
the war, maintained that mercantile restrictions were unpro­
fitable for trade, and deplored the emphasis placed on terri­
torial acquisition.
A recent study claims that in the summer
of 1762 Tucker visited Shelburne, who was "preparing to push
the peace through the House of Lords," and reportedly warned
him and the government against keeping Guadeloupe and Martinique. 14 The degree to which Tucker influenced Shelburne and
the eventual terms of peace remains conjectural, of course,
but nonetheless Tucker, as the principal opponent of mercan­
tilism at that time, made clear his theories to Shelburne.
The Proclamation of 1763, accentuating the development of
settlement and cultivation rather than an expansion of com­
merce, trade and mercantile controls, reflects Tucker's the­
ories .
13
Hubert Hall, "Chatham's Colonial Policy," American
Historical Review, V (July, 1900), 672.
■^John Norris, Shelburne and Reform (London, 1963),
32 based upon Josiah Tucker, Four Letters on Important Subiects Addressed to the Earl of Shelburne (3rd ed.; Glouces­
ter, l7S3), 2.
------
117
Had Pitt remained in power until the conclusion of
the war with France and Spain he would have demanded sterner
terms of peace. - Pitt was concerned with conquests and not
with the costs of those conquests.
A more extensive empire
could have been acquired, but at a price which the peace
party could not accept.
Yet, despite Pitt’s disappointment,
the empire after 1763 offered much scope for commercial ex­
pansion .
Statistics showing the empire’s trade indicate the
steady growth of overseas trade in the decade following the
Treaty of Paris. J
In that period, traders to Asia witnessed
the most significant gains; the empire was entering into a
period of increased trade and exploration in the eastern and
southern hemispheres. 16 The British West Indies continued
their role as the leading supplier to the mother country.
Yet the new acquisitions in the Caribbean seemingly did not
prove valuable as markets for the British exporter.
The
American colonies, their exports growing at a slow rate, con­
sumed increasingly more British products.
Britain’s trade
with the remaining areas of British North America and Africa
maintained rates of slow but steady growth.
l^See Appendixes I and II.
•^For a discussion of the significance of the trade
of the British exporter to these regions see Peter Marshall,
’’The First and Second British Empires: a Question of Demar­
cation,” History. XLIX (February, 1964), 13-23 and Ralph
Davis, ’’English Foreign Trade, 1700-1774,” Economic History
Review, 2nd ser. XV (December, 1962), 285-303.
118
What conclusions can be drawn from these observations?
After the Treaty of Paris, Britain’s trade continued to grow
in an expanded empire, particularly in those North American
possessions held prior to the commencement of the Seven Years'
War.
But the fact that Britain’s West Indian possessions
were not noticeably increased by the treaty forced the Ameri­
can traders to return to their old markets in the French West
Indies.
The growth of the thirteen colonies after 1763 empha­
sized an imbalance apparent before the war which the British
in the Treaty of Paris had failed to rectify.
Further im­
perial controls, as part of the peace party's policy of eco­
nomy and reform, would thus be needed to control smuggling.^
In the eastern regions of the empire, the trade volume of the
East India Company increased significantly and the imperial
domination of India was underway.
Thus of the three major
areas of empire--North America, the West Indies and India-the West Indies alone, while remaining important as an area
of supply, did not offer a market of sufficient magnitude to
absorb the growing American exports, a situation which remained
chronic through the American Revolution.
In summary, the British mercantile interests--sugar
planters, slave traders, fur traders, spice dealers, fisher­
men and others engaged in trade--influenced in varying degrees
In 1764 the Royal Navy was authorized to guard against
smuggling, vice admiralty courts were created and the Sugar Act
was instituted. All were aimed at the control of illicit trade.
119
the Peace of Paris.
If the treaty appeared unsatisfactory
to their commercial and financial positions it did so be­
cause of their great expectations from an extensive and vic­
torious war.
The fall from power of their political ally,
Pitt, in late 1761 terminated their close ties with a mini­
stry dedicated to a vigorous war effort.
Thereafter, the
peace party, in full control of the government, failed to
fully consider the extensive commercial advantages which
could be gained from the conquered areas.
Rather, the mini­
stry sought a quick settlement with France and Spain and
returned many valuable territories which the trading inter­
ests, exclusive of the West Indian planters, had hoped to
retain.
The return of Guadeloupe, Martinique and the other
captured Caribbean islands, the slave post of Goree, and
the continued recognition of France's fishing rights off
Newfoundland: all of these restricted the merchants engaged
in trade with those areas.
Yet, the Treaty of Paris benefited the majority of
the mercantile interests.
It granted the East India Company
new domains and enlarged areas of trade; it offered the Hud­
son's Bay Company access to the vast Indian lands to the south
of their territories; it gave the slave trader Senegal as a
source of supply and the newly acquired islands as markets;
it offered the West Indian planters continued protection; and'
it granted the fishing interests the Canadian coastline.
The
120
enlarged empire, moulded by the desires and actions of the
mercantile interests and re-inforced by the efforts of the
war, promised further possibilities for the trading communi­
ty.
Britain's first empire, born of commerce, grew with the
Treaty of Paris to the benefit of the mercantile interests.
APPENDIX I
OVERSEAS TRADE OF BRITAIN WITH THE
AMERICAN COLONIES, THE WEST INDIES AND ASIA,
1745-1774*
(in £000)
745
746
747
748
749
(American
Colonies)
IOKPOrtLS ExDorts
535
554
j 60
755
561
727
717
830
664
1,231
(British
(Asia)
West Indies)
Imports Exports Imports. Exports
293
1 024
974
280
894
1 148
647
497
346
822
941
389
306
1 616
442
1,099
554
1,124
1 481
557
750
751
752
753
754
815
836
1,004
973
1,008
1,313
1,233
1,148
1,453
1,176
1
1
1
1
1
516
448
433
903
467
547
631
704
833
686
1,104
1,097
1,068
1,008
1,186
509
798
628
788
844
755
756
757
758
759
940
659
611
671
640
1,113
1,352
1,628
1,713
2,345
1
1
1
1
1
869
689
910
863
835
695
733
777
878
935
1,247
796
1,112
223
974
875
489
845
922
665
760
761
762
763
764
832
895
918
1,157
1,126
2,713
1,722
1,387
1,660
2,273
1
2
1
2
2
907
000
809
349
528
1,300
992
989
1,154
984
1,786
841
973
1,059
1,183
1,162
846
1,067
887
1,166
765
766
767
768
769
1,160
1,048
1,134
1,272
1,073
1,973
1,844
1,946
2,198
1,373
2
2
2
3
2
302
688
851
139
927
1,072
1,195
1,144
1,261
1,370
1,456
1,976
1,981
1,508
1,863
914
784
1,273
1,156
1,205
770
771
772
773
774
1,095
1,348
1,265
1,374
1,380
1,955
4,201
3,091
1,987
2,599
3
2
3
2
3
342
937
405
836
561
1,339
1,214
1,440
1,336
1,419
1,942
1,882
2,473
1,933
1,387
1,082
1,185
941
846
546
'
aFrom B. R. Mitchell, Abstract of British Historical
Statistics (Cambridge, 1962)7 310.
~
APPENDIX II
OVERSEAS TRADE OF BRITAIN WITH AFRICA AND
BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, 1745-1774a
(in £000)
(Africa)
(Great Britain)
Imports
Exports
Imports
Exports
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
11
25
2
18
16
71
117
186
234
201
40
44
35
57
52
32
41
56
43
68
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
29
56
43
34
22
161
215
236
276
235
46
58
50
49
42
63
100
70
74
70
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
40
39
30
44
24
174
188
154
168
228
46
30
42
46
59
65
77
98
119
139
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
39
12
31
18
86
346
325
273
464
465
36
52
70
74
85
179
351
214
226
354
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
52
52
56
67
59
469
497
558
612
605
94
105
103
95
105
345
457
281
184
264
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
68
97
92
68
57
571
703
866
662
847
106
100
130
123
136
374
319
354
430
438
aFrom B. R. Mitchell, Abstract of British Histori­
cal Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), 310.
APPENDIX III
BEAVER SKINS IMPORTED INTO AND EXPORTED FROM
ENGLAND FROM CHRISTMAS 1749 TO CHRISTMAS 1763a
Imported
Exported
1750
62 043.
35 393
1
- 54 204
32 540
2
63 651
33 499
3
74 952
21 502
4
43 023
25 535
5
46 348
16 373
6
36 070
14 921
7
36 759
9 670
8
31 604
10 479
9
27 876
27 610
1760
46 495
19 505
1
101 011
39 893
2
173 586
43 944
3
128 492
129 801
aFrom G. L. Beer, British Colonial Policy,
1754-1765. New York, 1907, 214 from Board o£ Traae
Com. Series II, 626, B II.
.Arctic^ _Circte_
.EGEND
A Amerl'Carrv-.Cp/Lonies
L\
B Indian L a n a s " "
NM
♦.'-Canada
/
~~r~
D Hudson! s Eay Company Lands
E Louisiana^ -— ________
F West Florida
~~ —
G East Florida
Map I.--North America, 1763
of_Ca?2-
Map II.— The West Indies in the mid-Eighteenth Century
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